The Ghost in the Machine
by RobinRocks
Summary: SuzakuxLelouch. Lelouch can't let the world be and, likewise, Suzaku can't turn his back on his prince, no matter how much he wants to. The world might not be so easy to change this time around, however. Their enemy? Geass itself. Post-R2.
1. Knight, Devil, Witch

Okay, first of all, I'm going to warn you straight off: This fic, as described by the summary as being set post-_R2_, is absolutely RIDDLED with spoilers for pretty much all of _Code Geass_, including the finale. **Especially** the finale. And pretty much from the get-go, as well.

So, thankyou very much for clicking on my story, but if you don't want the ending of the series spoiled, don't read it. Seriously. Someone spoiled the finale for me. It ruined my life. O.o

Ahaha, well, not really – but I wasn't very happy. So, yeah. Just a heads-up. I've given the warning, so it's fair game from here on out. If you read on and get spoiled, it's not my fault. So there. ;)

Whoo, so, OMG, multi-chaptered _Code Geass_ fic! I haven't ever (deliberately) written one before, so I am excited! I say "deliberately" because _Survive_ has three chapters but that was more a case of it simply… accumulating. It's more like three interconnected oneshots as opposed to being a story…

But this is a real, proper, totally-intended multi-chapter _Code Geass_ fic! Huzzah! And it's SuzakuxLelouch! Oh yeah!

Oh, and if the title of this fic reminds you of a little something called _Ghost in the Shell_…

…Well, more about that afterwards.

* * *

'Organisms _are not_ machines, but they can to a certain extent _become_ machines – congeal into machines.'

- Arthur Koestler; _The Ghost in the Machine_

* * *

The Ghost in the Machine

I – Knight, Devil, Witch

"Well, you don't care about my opinion, do you?" she murmured, a trace of a smile on her face as she looked at him. "If you did, I would give it to you, but you haven't changed…"

"Is that supposed to be a joke?"

Her pretty smile twisted.

"Rather a sick one if it is, right?" Her head tilted slightly, her hair swaying at the small of her back. "Actually, I would say that it's more like me mocking you… if that was the case, anyway."

"And is it?"

She looked at the ceiling.

"No," she decided eventually. "Because even if it's true… I wasn't talking about how you look. I meant your personality. You've never taken advice from me."

"That's because you're selfish."

She looked back at him, her gold eyes gleaming.

"Of course." She laughed – perhaps at him, or perhaps at herself. "Which makes it all the more amusing that you won't take the one thing I offer you."

"You were offering me your opinion, not your advice."

"And you don't want it."

"Of course not."

She sighed.

"How about a fact, then?"

He didn't answer her – sitting before the mirror in sudden silence, looking not at his reflection, but rather down at the folded pink paper crane cradled gently in his slender hands.

She said nothing else either, acting as the backdrop to the reversed picture of them both in the mirror at the dresser.

He, who suddenly hadn't aged; and she, who suddenly had.

"Was your "fact" that it's idiotic?" he asked at length, playing with the crane's wings.

"No. That it's unnecessary." Her voice softened. "You've done enough. You've done everything you could. To go back now, simply for that—"

"I think it's necessary. Unless it's done, it's not finished." He looked over his shoulder at her. "But it won't be like last time. I don't need to drag anybody else in with me – not even you. I can do this by myself."

"I shouldn't have told you about it."

"Maybe you shouldn't have given me Geass, either." He smiled sharply. "But I'm glad you did."

"To which?"

"To both."

She gave an absent nod.

"Shall I come with you?"

"No." He stood up and turned towards her, leaning against the dresser. "I don't need you."

She smiled in real amusement.

"As charming as always," she said dryly.

"This has nothing to do with you anymore, anyway."

"…I suppose not. I am free of it now."

"And I was caged in your place."

"Hm." She acknowledged the statement with a nod, her gaze settling absently at his abdomen. "But if not, then you would not be here now to make up your silly mind about things like this."

"Couldn't the same be said for you, witch?"

She smirked.

"Certainly." The smirk faded as quickly as it had graced her face. "…But you _are_ being silly."

"Perhaps. But I won't be satisfied with it any other way."

"I know that. That's why I said that you haven't changed. Maybe it's conceit, or you being in love with changing everything that you can, or simply pride."

"Pride?" He gave a cool little laugh. "This coming from you, when you won't answer to your true name? Instead I must still call you C.C., even when the Code from which that name comes now belongs to me?"

Her head tilted again and the odd smile returned.

"Of course – because I haven't changed either. I'm still the selfish witch you call C.C., right?"

He gave a smile of his own and looked down at the crane once more.

"And is _that_ also why you're going back?" she asked, following his gaze to it.

"No," he replied, his voice growing cold. "I already said that I won't drag anybody else in with me again, and I… _especially_ not him. I've done enough." He gave little sigh, and spoke more to himself; "_I've ruined him enough_…"

C.C. crossed to him, stopping right before him; he looked up at her, a little warily.

"I am not like V.V.," she said. "I don't get jealous when people I've made contracts with love someone else. After all, you promised to grant my wish – you promised me nothing else."

"This has nothing to do with that," he replied stiffly, looking away. "It wouldn't matter either way, anyway. I'm dead to the world – and, most of all, to _him_. He's the one who killed me, after all." He gave a little shake of his head. "No, I couldn't do that to him. Suzaku… and Nunnally, too… They have their new world, and it exists without me in it. It's better if it stays that way."

He looked at C.C. again.

"Isn't it?" he asked her.

She took the hand that wasn't holding the crane and wrapped her own fingers around it. She said nothing.

"C.C.?"

"That is something you would have to ask Suzaku Kururugi."

"I can't."

"Then you'll never know." She smiled at him. "Go and do whatever you want, little boy. If you don't come back, I'll come and find you."

He smiled lazily at her.

"Is that a threat?"

"Perhaps."

"Since when do you care if I come back or not?"

"Are we not still accomplices? You yourself once called us a witch and a devil."

"I did."

"Yes." She kissed him on the forehead. "Because I'm C.C., and you're Lelouch."

* * *

He awoke, as he had before, with his name on his lips.

The silence of the night, having long since settled over each of the rooms like a blanket – at once both comforting and terrifying – was punctuated by his gasps, drawn in a breathless staccato rhythm, as though he had spent too long beneath the surface of ice-laden water.

It wasn't a cold night, but he found himself shivering; maybe from some subtle horror that he could not understand, even now, and never had.

The dream had been formless – empty, even. He often had vivid dreams of him, reliving the times when their worlds had been one; playing in the dusty shadows of trees as children, or lying in the sun on the grass of Ashford Academy, or those last days, when he had dimly and uninterestedly considered counting every eye-like jewel on his robes, if only he would care to stand still long enough.

Sometimes he watched him die again, and awoke in a worse state than even this.

But tonight he couldn't remember anything about it. Maybe it hadn't been a dream about him after all. Perhaps it was _simply_ the emptiness of it which had connected him, upon waking, to his name, because _he_ wasn't a part of this closed world anymore.

The world was a better place, more so than it had ever been, but Suzaku Kururugi felt as trapped as he always had. Perhaps he could not resent it, for he had always desired punishment for his sins, and _this_ was surely it—

But still, perhaps he somehow resented Lelouch, if only for leaving him behind – and reminding him of it by being alive to him whilst he slept.

(Although maybe they'd _always_ only been able to be together outside of reality.)

He pushed back the sheets and rose. As it had been every night for the past three years, the bed was empty but for him, so there was no reason for him to stay here. He slept because it was necessary – because the man behind the mask was human and thus functioned as such. But he was never really tired anymore, never really hungry; happy, sad or angry.

He existed only because he had no other option.

And perhaps for Nunnally, too, because he was really all she had left now; but the truth was, he'd never felt like more of a machine.

Even if he had long since ceased to be a part of one.

On reaching the balcony overlooking the garden, silent and silver, he found himself no longer alone; Nunnally was already out here, sitting quietly in her chair with her hands folded in her lap and her long hair braided over her shoulder, the way she often wore it to sleep now.

"Can't you sleep either?" he asked softly, approaching her from behind.

She turned her large lilac eyes towards him, blinking in surprise; at present, he couldn't help but be unsettled. Of _course_ she looked like him – she was his sister. She was eighteen now, as he had been – and age had moulded her more than ever into his likeness. _His_ eyes, granted, had been a darker shade of purple, but there was no mistaking the similarity. He could see Lelouch in her, and would have been able to, he reasoned, even if he hadn't been looking.

"I was just thinking about tomorrow," she replied with a smile.

"The demonstration?"

Nunnally nodded, and Suzaku couldn't help but smile.

"_If_ you can call it that," he added. "I'd simply call it 'Lloyd showing off how clever he is'."

"It's a very big technological breakthrough, though, isn't?" Nunnally asked by way of reply, her tone both curious and amused. "I saw it on the news – Milly was talking about it in a special segment. Nina and Professor Chawla helped with the development of it, too."

"Hm." Suzaku leaned over the wooden balcony, folding his arms on the surface of it. "I can't say I'm surprised that Lloyd came out with something like that, at any rate. I know he was working on independent research, even back when I was only testing the prototype of the Lancelot."

"Oh?" Nunnally gave a little giggle. "Are you jealous, Suzaku? Do you wish that you were demonstrating the prototypes tomorrow, too?"

"Oh, I'm sure I'd have been first on Lloyd's list, if only he knew I was still available for his dangerous experiments with human life," Suzaku replied dryly. "But I'm certain that Gino and Anya will do him proud. He'll be especially delighted if one of them dies."

Nunnally blinked and Suzaku shook his head.

"I'm only joking," he murmured, smiling at her again. "He's not _that_ awful…"

"Did you like working with him, Suzaku?"

"With Lloyd, you mean?"

"Yes."

Suzaku shrugged.

"It had its perks," he replied. "And he's not a bad person – he's just… detached. It must just be the way he thinks. I don't think it's cruelty, but to him… humans are just another component to experiment on."

"…Are you not happy about what he's done?"

Suzaku was silent for a long while.

"I don't suppose it's got anything to do with me anymore, whether I am or not," he replied.

"But you can still care about it," Nunnally replied firmly.

"I guess so."

"In which case… what do you think?"

"I think… that it's dangerous." He looked at her. "But… it's all been pretty dangerous, hasn't it? Getting here at all."

"Hm?" Nunnally tilted her head. "Is that what it's like? Technology?"

"I… No, perhaps that's what Lloyd would say. That humanity, all of it, the way it works… is like a machine. Maybe that's what inspires him."

"Well, if that's true, then the machine is working well, isn't it?"

Nunnally reached for Suzaku's hand, touching her fingertips gently against his skin, as though feeling for his answer. She had learned to rely on this less over the past three years, instead re-learning to judge the world by what had been so long taken from her, but it was understandable that she'd fall back into that old habit now and then. Maybe she was more comfortable to find the answers that really mattered to her this way – a lie was, after all, merely an appearance.

And devils could hide behind the appearances of princes.

(And maybe she preferred to talk to _Suzaku_ through touch, even now; because she had first met him, and first loved him, when she had been blind, and when she had finally opened her eyes, her first ever sight of him, seeing Suzaku Kururugi for what he looked like, had been merely to show him the face of her adversary.

The first time she had seen him, both he and Lelouch, the brother she hadn't seen for nine years, had been her enemies.)

"It's what they would have wanted," Suzaku replied, taking her hand and squeezing it. "Euphy, and…"

He felt Nunnally stiffen almost imperceptively when he hesitated; though he could not say why she did so, or why indeed it was so hard for him to suddenly say his name, when he had spoken it in the silence of his room, where it had more space to echo and torment him, barely fifteen minutes before.

"It's perfect," he tried again; as Nunnally's gaze settled on him again, almost pleading with him. "Everything he did… always turned out perfect."

"But that's not true, is it?" Nunnally replied quietly, looking away from him; but still letting her small hand rest in his. "Not… not everything…"

"_He_ would have called it that. But then… he did so like for things to go exactly his way, didn't he?"

"I know that, but I…" She gave a little sigh. "It _would_ have been perfect, wouldn't it, if only he and Euphy had lived to see it…"

"But maybe… the machine works just as well without them."

"But do _we_, Suzaku?"

He couldn't read her eyes as she looked at him again; much the way he hadn't been able to read Lelouch's on the night they had stood before each other, with Lelouch explaining his plan for the Zero Requiem. His mouth had been smiling, but Suzaku hadn't been able to follow it to his eyes.

But there had been nothing else there, either. They had been completely empty – like the wasteland of his dream.

"Suzaku?" Nunnally asked again, tightening her fingers around his.

"Perhaps not correctly," he answered at length, his voice hollow. "Maybe we'll never work correctly again, Nunnally. But we're alive, and that's what he wanted from us. That's why he left us behind."

Though there were tears in her eyes, Nunnally laughed softly.

"How terrible of him," she said fondly.

"He _was_ terrible – but _that_ was what he wanted, as well."

"That's what makes me sad, Suzaku," Nunnally whispered, her laughter gone again. "I know… it was what he wanted, but you and I… are the only ones who know that he wasn't the monster he pretended to be."

"He pretended to be a lot of things."

"But he died in the final of those façades – his most hated." Nunnally wiped at her wet eyes on her cuff. "We're the only ones who still love him. We're the only ones who _can_."

"Maybe it's better that way."

"I miss him, Suzaku. But it's been three years. Do you think that's silly of me?"

"No, but if it is, then we're both guilty of the same idiocy."

"Yes." Nunnally smiled up at him again. "I'm… so glad that you love him too, Suzaku."

Suzaku gave a nod of reply and, after another long moment, loosened his grip on her hand; she took her own back, folding it with her other in her lap again.

"Goodnight, Nunnally," Suzaku said, starting away.

"Oh, Suzaku…!"

He looked back at her, but she gave a little shake of her head.

"Nothing, it doesn't matter… I can just do it tomorrow…"

"No, tell me. I can do whatever it is that you want, Nunnally."

"Oh, I just… I think he might need another candle. I put the new down there about four days ago now. It must have burned out by now, but… it's okay, I can do it tomorrow."

"No." Suzaku shook his head. "I'll go down and do it for you now."

"For _us_, Suzaku." She twisted her fingers together absently. "I have one in my room."

"Okay."

They were like each other in that respect. He didn't want to leave him without a flame burning either, even if it was just until morning.

He took Nunnally back to her room and waited at the door for her to return with the small, round white candle, perfectly new, and with her brother's name etched neatly into the wax. It was their own little remembrance ritual – a day didn't pass when there wasn't a candle exactly like this one burning. They did the same for Euphemia, and he didn't know when it was going to stop – if ever.

It had become a kind of obsession on both parts.

"I put a new one down there for Euphy yesterday," Nunnally said, lighting the candle as Suzaku held it in his palms. "These ones seem to last quite a few days, but even so… Brother's must have gone out by now. _He_ would never be so disorganized…"

"No," Suzaku agreed, watching the flame catch the wick and leap to life, casting its warm light upwards onto his face; it was true. Lelouch had been fussy and meticulous like that. No wonder Milly and Rivalz had teased him…

He left Nunnally with a nod and a pale smile, cupping the candle carefully in his hands, the flame dancing to the rhythm of his footsteps. The chamber was underground, and by the time he got down there, the flame had grown, no longer struggling against the new wick.

It lit his way as he crossed the floor to the pool, which lay perfectly still, like a black mirror – in the centre of which, floating like a solitary ship on a calm sea, was a pink candle, its dancing gleam a kindred spirit to the one he held on his palms. Near to it, having, as Nunnally had predicted, gone out, was the remainder of the other candle with Lelouch's name cut into it by his sister's loving hand.

Suzaku knelt at the edge of the artificial pool and let the candle go onto its glass-like surface, giving it a little nudge with his fingertips to push it away towards Euphemia's candle and the other one which bore the dead prince's name.

He sat back, placing his hands on the ground and folding his legs, as he watched it drift quietly away. It was dark in here but for their soft light, which nonetheless lit the chamber well, almost unnaturally-so.

He wondered how many candles they had lit for them. Perhaps it was to be like that old Japanese legend about origami paper cranes – fold a thousand of them and your wish will come true. He'd told Nunnally that once, seeing her make one – she'd replied that Sayoko had once told her the same thing, on being her teacher.

Was that what they were doing? Was this less for Lelouch and Euphemia, and more for Nunnally and himself? Was this their consolation, knowing that there was a tangible symbol of their remembrance, burning as their sorrow did? Maybe it was nothing but the fulfilment of a silly wish neither of them really believed would come true.

Wishes.

Lelouch had said that. That Geass was like wishes. Suzaku hadn't really understood what he'd meant. He'd been able to agree with him, because he knew what he meant on principle – ideologically and metaphorically, he'd understood Lelouch's words.

But he couldn't understand Geass itself – perhaps because he knew how it felt to have a wish, but not how it felt to have it fulfilled.

He thought of C.C., who'd been so like him in that respect. He'd not spoken of her to Nunnally, because there seemed to be no point in bringing her up, trying to explain her existence and purpose, neither of which C.C. herself had really had a reason for.

But he knew that he and Nunnally weren't the only ones who had known Lelouch simply for who and what he was. He could never know if C.C. had ever cared about Lelouch in the end, but he did not think ill of her for that. C.C. had been tired of love and tired of life.

But she'd known that Lelouch hadn't been all that he pretended to be, either.

He wondered where C.C. was now. He hadn't seen her since… _that_ day. It was logical. He had called himself Lelouch's sword, and thus declared C.C. his shield – and, that day, Lelouch hadn't needed a shield.

So she'd left, and Suzaku hadn't seen or heard of her since. She hadn't even been present at Lelouch's funeral. He hadn't, of course, expected her to come in a black veil and weep over his coffin, but he'd looked for her on the outskirts of it, almost _hoping_ to see that sad, dull glint of her gold eyes, but she hadn't come.

But he'd had Nunnally to deal with, anyway. She'd been inconsolable for days afterwards. He'd been in the sickening, oppressive grasp of grief himself, but he'd held himself together – for her, because she had needed him.

_He'd_ cried alone, at night, when there was no demand for him to be strong for someone else.

Lelouch hadn't been the only casualty, of course. He couldn't begin to count how many had died – but some of them, he reasoned, so _young_. Euphemia, of course – and Lelouch himself had been only eighteen. But there had been that boy from the Order, Rolo, as well – sixteen, if he'd even been that.

And Shirley Fenette. There was something about her death that had always disturbed him – perhaps because he'd been with her the day that she had died. He and Lelouch. She'd tried to repair their friendship, for the sake of acknowledging friendship as the precious thing she'd always believed it was.

She'd been right. It had truly hit him, harder than anything, when he lost Lelouch – his first, best, and perhaps only _real_ friend.

He'd been more than that, as well, but at this point, Suzaku didn't think the difference between sexual and platonic love meant anything. It didn't change the fact that Suzaku had loved him, or that he still did, or that Lelouch was dead.

So maybe those candles, or wishes, weren't just for Euphemia and Lelouch. Maybe they were for everyone, living or dead. For Nunnally and C.C. and perhaps even Suzaku himself; and for Shirley and Rolo as well as Euphy and Lelouch.

_But perhaps still mostly for you, Lelouch; because I loved you most of all._

* * *

Tragic, tragic stuff. Seriously.

Or, at least, it _would_ be, were Lelouch not in fact merely off gallivanting with C.C. somewhere.

Alright, let's start with the theory – the "theory" being the fan-theory that Lelouch didn't actually die at the end of _R2_. Now, honestly, whether he actually did or not by official standards (and he very well may have done) makes no difference to this fanfic, because it's exactly that: A fanfic. So we'll call _The Ghost in the Machine_ merely speculative. You know, for a bit of fun. But the theory is that Lelouch has a Code. There is a divide in opinion as to whether he has C.C.'s Code or Charles' Code (originally V.V.'s). The theory continues that Suzaku "killing" him activated the Code and therefore, in the final scene, C.C. _was_ actually talking to him personally as opposed to the more metaphysical sense in which Kallen addressed him in the scene before.

I mean, there's no evidence for it, and I don't think it makes the ending any more or less cool if he did or didn't die, but it's a neat theory nonetheless. So I sprang on it for this fic. Totally.

Next. _The Ghost in the Machine_. You may have heard this actual title before, or simply be more familiar with the "variation" of it, Shirow Masamune's _Ghost in the Shell_ (FYI, _Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex_? Awesome show. Seriously. End plug.). Okay, basically, _The Ghost in the Machine_ is the title of a book by Arthur Koestler, published in 1967 – it's essentially the concept of the human mind or consciousness (ghost) being a separate entity to the body (machine). _Ghost in the Shell_ pretty much employs the same ideology, more or less – although, given its nature, goes more into the whole humans/cyborgs thing. I mean, if you've seen either the movies or _Stand Alone Complex_, you'll know what I'm talking about. They can upload their "ghosts" onto the internet and stuff… O.o Which is irrelevant to this fic – but just in case you immediately thought of _Ghost in the Shell_ when you saw this story's title, Koestler's book is originally where it comes from.

Okay, I did my research. I found the only copy of _The Ghost in the Machine_ in my university library. I checked it out. I'm not going to say I read it all, because I didn't, but I read quite a bit of it. There was not much in there which lent itself to what I am trying to do with this fic. So I am not going to be using any of the concepts explored in the book itself.

Hurrah, you all say; because there's nothing worse than a story crammed full of botched philosophy that the author only _thinks_ they understand. What I want to do is reliant only on the title of 'The Ghost in the Machine' itself; so we'll use that as our (literal) metaphorical springboard and go from there.

This story: Machinery = major theme. Most _Code Geass_ fics ignore the Knightmares, I've noticed (I'm completely guilty of it myself – though not as much as the official _Code Geass_ manga, in which Knightmares do not exist. No, I have NO IDEA how that works either, given that, last I checked, _Code Geass_ was a mecha). BUT it's really important to this fic. We'll see how well this goes (Read: How well I can write it. In real life, me and technology do not get on – if I got in a Knightmare, it would probably blow up…).

So, yeah… that's that. One more thing to bore you with (aren't you glad I saved all this for the end?):

The structure of this fic is very choppy. It's full of flashbacks, all of which have some kind of point, but may not be chronological, exactly…

Again, merely a fair warning, in case, over the course of _The Ghost in the Machine_, you begin to think I have some form of ADD…

Okay, so, thankyou for reading! I hope you liked the first chapter… more than you liked the excessive AN that ambushed you right after it.

RobinRocks xXx


	2. Mechanise

Wow, so, thankyou for all your reviews so far! I'm glad everyone who reviewed seems to like it so far… Granted, nothing much to do with the actual storyline happened in the first chapter, _but_…!

Good times nonetheless. :)

Thankyou to: **KawaiiNekoMimi, ChasingCaffeine, Ryuuko1, MeEksiNs, anony, simply anonymous, Minute-Maid511, YaoiOkami, PikaNecoMico, Nusku, abls, Bligy **and** Deus3xMachina**!

And now for cameos from lots of random characters, Suzaku being emo and plot!

Whoo!

The Ghost in the Machine

II – Mechanise

_Lloyd Asplund had never been a very reassuring person – but he was meticulous._

_The truth was, he'd never cared about Suzaku Kururugi as a person, but rather as a part of his machine. The Lancelot had been the prototype of an entirely new generation of Knightmare Frame. Almost every last component of it had been grafted of brand new, improved, never-before-tested technology. It had been faster, stronger and more sensitive than any of the other models to date at that point. _

_Suzaku, of course, had never piloted anything even remotely like it before – he'd never even been in a Glasgow or a Sutherland, the most basic frames used by the Britannian army._

_He also hadn't been the first test pilot chosen. He'd never cared to ask how many down the line he'd been, and neither Lloyd nor Cecile had ever cared to mention it, but it was a fact that an Honorary Britannian holding only the rank of Private would never have been the first choice for such a task._

_Not that Lloyd would have been offered up the very best that the Britannian army had to test out his plaything, by any means – it was a dangerous job, and Britannia had no intention of allowing Lloyd to blow up their best men before they even got out onto the battlefield._

_But however many supposedly-superior-but-still-not-the-best-that-Britannia-had-to-offer had come before him, the fact was that Suzaku Kururugi had been the first to even be __**able**__ to control the Lancelot. All the others, Lloyd had laughed afterwards, had barely been able to make it move – and if they had, it had promptly veered completely out of their rule._

_Cecile had put it down to the technology. The Lancelot's completely re-imagined design took advantage of additional sakuradite sources scattered throughout its entire frame in addition to the sakuradite-powered heart that gave it life, the Yggdrasil Drive – which unarguably increased its potential and performance, but made it acutely more difficult to pilot than a standard mass-production frame._

_Lloyd had simply laughed again and said, perhaps mockingly, that clearly Suzaku was special._

_Or maybe he hadn't been lying. Lloyd tended not to lie – he had always been, contrarily, frighteningly blunt. That was, ironically, what had always made him so unreassuring. _

_But he was methodical and meticulous, and always had been; and had so insisted upon running regular diagnostics tests to ensure that Suzaku was interfacing correctly with the Lancelot._

_To make sure all the parts fit together correctly, as it were._

_Suzaku had always known that if he no longer "connected" properly with the Lancelot, Lloyd wouldn't have hesitated to replace him with someone else who did._

_But Lloyd had always gotten the results he had wanted._

_Every time, it had been like sliding fully-awake into a dream to him, as real as a needle sliding beneath skin; a strange sensation, alien and yet somehow still like a homecoming. The gift of it, he'd always found, was to accept it as a part of his body the moment he turned the key to ignite the system, not to reject it or consider it simply a shell to protect him. To connect to it, to make it yield to him, he had to become a part of it, because it could not become a part of him. Flesh was not like metal, and sakuradite was not like blood._

_If the Lancelot could not become human, then he had to become a machine._

_During the diagnostics procedure, he had not been required to make the Lancelot do anything. He only had to get dressed to pilot it, get in, turn the key, take the controls, and then close his eyes, sit still and shut up._

_The numbers had made sense to Lloyd. But Lloyd's experience of the Lancelot, purely from the outside, had always been completely different to Suzaku's. The first diagnostics test had made him feel trapped, claustrophobic and very, very afraid of the machine he found himself encased within._

_Because it had not been allowing it to share his consciousness. There had not been the freedom of movement, the empowered feeling of delight at making such a vast piece of machinery bend to his will._

_He had simply been left alone with the Lancelot in utter silence._

_But it hadn't been silence. Clutching the controls in numb, shaking hands, almost on the verge of screaming, he had realised that it wasn't silence. He had been able to hear the faint whir of the Yggdrasil Drive resonating upwards through the cockpit, reminding him that this machine, like him, had a heart._

_He had felt, too, the tremors – slight, subtle, like a heartbeat, pulsing within the Lancelot, ready to power it, to make it move if __**he**__ chose to command it to. And because he could feel them, and because he could hear it, he had drawn a breath and listened to it against the telltale symphony of the Lancelot, completely manufactured but somehow as alive as him._

_The breath had been shaky, but the echo of it didn't falter, instead merging with that same mechanised symphony._

_The sweat had clung to him and he had shuddered and then he had smiled._

_Lloyd had hummed contentedly over his numbers, scrawled on his clipboard, as Cecile had handed Suzaku a towel and a bottle of cold water after his emergence from the Lancelot._

"_You did well, Suzaku," Cecile had said with a warm smile, "but don't be afraid of it."_

"_No," Lloyd had said gleefully, making Suzaku look at him as he mopped at his brow with the towel. "__**Be**__ afraid of it. It's a machine designed to kill. It could easily kill even __**you**__, Kururugi."_

_Cecile had raised an eyebrow._

"_Its own pilot, Lloyd?" she had responded sharply._

_Lloyd had nodded, smiling lazily._

_And Suzaku had looked at it again and loved it._

* * *

Lloyd had liked his lab where it was – in Japan, so he had never left.

A lot of the people who had been involved were still in Japan, actually. Suzaku had stayed here, obviously, with Nunnally, who had relinquished her power as Viceroy but nonetheless remained an important diplomatic figure for Japan. Schneizel, still overpowered by the Geass Lelouch had left on him, was her assistant, and Suzaku, as Zero…

Well, he was pretty much her _knight_.

But Lloyd was still here, rinsing through money with his experiments; and Cecile was still here with him, if only to keep him in line, as she always had.

Milly was still here, getting on well with her job as a reporter; and Suzaku presumed that Kallen and Rivalz were still here, too, though he hadn't seen them. They wouldn't be at Ashford Academy anymore, obviously, but maybe they'd gone to university.

Ohgi, of course, was certainly still here, as Prime Minister of Japan; he was often on the news, sometimes with Villetta and their daughter.

A lot of the others had left to return to the Britannian homeland; Cornelia and Jeremiah certainly had, as had Gino and Anya, who had been the only two Knights of the Round left alive after Lelouch's assassination. Nunnally had said that Nina and Lakshata Chawla had gone back there too, though both remained in contact with Lloyd, their experimental practices often merging.

They would all be gathered today, though; here, in Japan, where it had all started to tie them all together.

And perhaps _this_ place was the very heart of it.

"It's strange, isn't it?" Nunnally murmured, turning to look up at him.

She couldn't see his face when he was dressed as Zero, obviously, but she didn't seem to need to be able to in order to gauge his reaction.

"Being back here, I mean," she went on, giving a small sigh. "…As we are now."

"I have no idea why he chose Ashford Academy for this," Suzaku replied flatly.

She probably felt as he did; and no doubt her words did not articulate quite how strange she found this. Being back here after all these years and all they'd been through, to look at the same scenery with changed perception…

He felt disturbingly displaced.

"It's perhaps for educational purposes," Nunnally decided; she gestured to the groups of Ashford students milling about excitedly, looking for places to sit. "It seems that all the students have been invited to come and see the demonstration, too."

"Lloyd always did like an audience," Suzaku muttered, glancing around. "Where's Schneizel? Wasn't he right behind us…?"

Nunnally looked around too.

"I don't know," she replied. "Maybe he went to meet someone. I think he said that Cornelia was going to come today."

"Cornelia, huh?"

"That's what he said."

Suzaku gave an absent nod. He did like to know where Schneizel was at all times, but it couldn't be helped. He didn't want to leave Nunnally on her own to go and look for him.

He sat next to her in one of the chairs and cast his gaze over the "arena" Lloyd had had set up. This vast expanse of land at the back of the school had once been Milly's playground, her stage upon which she threw her wild events and parties. But now it was clear, with seating arranged in a vast ring, almost like a coliseum – in the centre of which were two Knightmare Frames of a completely new design, and before them a small raised platform with a single microphone standing on it.

Their seating was farther back then the rest; higher up, too, and organised like a box. Right now, he and Nunnally were the only two here, but he presumed that Schneizel, Cornelia, Villetta and Ohgi were to join them.

"It would be nice to forget about this and just have a wander around Ashford, wouldn't it?" Suzaku said, not really expecting an answer.

But Nunnally looked at him.

"Well, yes… For old time's sake, but… don't you want to see this?"

He shrugged. He didn't know. He understood why Lloyd had never given a big, newsworthy demonstration like this before – because before peace had been achieved, it would have been a pointless endeavour to try and showcase powerful technology like this, at least in one of the repressed, occupied areas, as Japan had been.

It would have been like _inviting_ strikes from terrorist and resistance groups, either to cause chaos or steal Britannian technology.

Or both.

So it wasn't as though he felt that Lloyd was suddenly cheapening his genius for no apparent reason – but to him, it felt exactly like that nonetheless:

That this cheapened his achievements.

He was sure that that wasn't Lloyd's intention. Piloting a Knightmare wasn't easy to do – even manoeuvring a Glasgow or Sutherland required a certain amount of competence. Lloyd knew that, perhaps better than anyone. That was why he'd called Suzaku, the only one able to properly connect with the Lancelot, "special". And that was also why he'd asked Gino and Anya, experienced pilots of the equally-advanced Tristan and Mordred Frames, to be a part of this demonstration. He wasn't trying to make it look easy, as though anybody could do it.

Suzaku knew that. But maybe that exactly what he didn't like about this. Piloting a Knightmare was an almost… _intimate_ experience, a joining of man and machine that couldn't be understood by anyone who was outside the occurrence. He wouldn't have ever considered it to be _sexual_ – but perhaps, somehow, it was on the same level.

He thought back to Nunnally's question from the night before, and knew his answer.

"I'm not jealous, Nunnally," he said finally. "I'm glad I'm not a part of this."

"But do you want to _see_ it?" Nunnally pressed, smiling even so.

"I don't think so."

Nunnally took his hand and squeezed it comfortingly; but she didn't say anything.

Ohgi and Villetta appeared soon afterwards, each holding their young daughter by the hand, and surrounded by a small entourage of men in black suits; Milly, with her own entourage of cameramen, covered their entrance smoothly and quickly, made a gesture towards Nunnally and Suzaku, and then went to report on the Knightmares.

"It's the perfect job for her, isn't it?" Nunnally mused as they watched her; and, indeed, her ease in front of cameras was impressive.

The atmosphere was heightening and the crowds thinning, but even though the demonstration was due to begin soon, Suzaku still saw no sign of either Schneizel or Cornelia – the two seats to the left of Villetta remained empty. Ohgi and Villetta herself were now immersed in polite conversation with Nunnally, and their daughter was sitting on Nunnally's lap, apparently very happy to be there.

The tension with Nunnally didn't exist. Maybe it was just how she was. But while neither Ohgi nor Villetta were impolite to him, the tension between them and Suzaku was like a brick wall.

Perhaps there was no reason for it to be there. After all, he wasn't Lelouch, and they both knew it. He couldn't be. All four of them – Ohgi, Villetta, Nunnally and Suzaku himself – had been witnesses to his death.

No, they weren't looking at the real Zero. They were looking only at the real Zero's murderer.

At length the crowd fell silent, anticipation met by Lloyd's appearance. He was followed onto the small stage by Cecile, Lakshata and Nina. Three years hadn't really changed any of them – only Nina looked significantly older than she had done back then.

Lloyd hadn't changed at all – he even wore that same implacable smile.

He came to the microphone and took hold of it, lifting it from the stand.

"Thankyou all for coming," he said, and maybe Lloyd just wasn't made for public speaking, but his tone of voice was no less condescending than it usually was. "I'll keep this brief, but my colleagues – Cecile Croomy, Lakshata Chawla and Nina Einstein – and myself have been working on this new system for a number of years now; and agreed that, on completing two variations of a working prototype, we wouldn't selfishly keep it to ourselves, but instead show the world what the world can do."

There was applause, which didn't seem to affect Lloyd either way, and he handed Cecile the microphone, stepping back.

"These two new Knightmare Frames are both accumulations of various technologies," Cecile went on. "Some of the research goes back more than two decades, but the amalgamation of it into the development of useable technology was not possible until now. An issue with the running of Knightmares is the matter of their power core and their fuel – quite simply, sakuradite is not an inexhaustible source. Additionally, the use of sakuradite for the Core Luminous system employed within the Yggdrasil Drive of Knightmares also has the fallback of being able to be intercepted and interfered with by the Gefjun Disturber technology originally created by Professor Chawla. Whilst there are available countermeasures against the Gefjun Distuber, the blocking of its effects causes a severe drain upon the power reserves of the Knightmare in question."

"The use of sakuradite is outdated," Lakshata put in, snatching the microphone from Cecile; she gestured dramatically with a wide arm towards the two Knightmares behind them. "These are the Mars System Prototype and the Jupiter System Prototype. Neither of them have an ounce of sakuradite within them, but they will move."

She offered the microphone to Nina, who blinked at it in surprise, as though unaware that this had become some kind of relay race; she adjusted her glasses and nervously took it, clutching it far less confidently than the other three had.

"Um, well… I did a lot of research on Britannia's original prototype Knightmare, the Ganymede," she said, "which also didn't use sakuradite, but instead was powered by an external battery. While this obviously had severe drawbacks, limiting its movement and power, it made it resistant to the problems found within the later sakuradite-powered models. So… we thought that we should try a different form of battery as opposed to a fuel source…"

She trailed off, looking desperately for someone else to hand the microphone to. At length Lloyd gave a sigh and took it half-heartedly.

"We originally tried a solar-powered battery," he said, his voice rather disinterested, "but it ran down far too quickly and couldn't gather more energy fast enough to keep it going, even when it was outside in the sun. So we got to thinking… about using some of the old research from when the idea for Knightmare Frames was first conceived. The original idea for a battery hadn't been an actual _battery_ – it had been to generate power from the _pilot_. Back then, it wasn't possible, but now, with newly-developed technology…" He too gestured lazily to the Knightmare Frames standing behind the stage. "Thus… the Mars System Prototype interfaces with the nerves of the pilot, mirroring the movements the pilot makes on the controls as opposed to the controls actually manoeuvring the Knightmare itself, as they do in all other frames. The Jupiter System Prototype, on the other hand, is a slightly more complex model, as it connects only to the thoughts of the pilot, and is commanded as such."

Lloyd lowered the microphone as various murmurs ran through the otherwise-spellbound crowd.

"Isn't that dangerous?" Nunnally whispered, leaning towards Suzaku.

Suzaku nodded.

"That's what I said last night," he replied quietly. "I hope they know what they're doing…"

But he doubted it, somehow. He wasn't debating their intelligence – but intelligence and common sense were at entirely different ends of the spectrum. Just because they _could_ create machines that interfaced with raw human thought, it didn't mean that they _should_ – and just because they knew how to do it, it didn't mean they knew what the outcome was going to be.

Now that they'd laid out their creations entirely bare, he couldn't help but feel even more appalled than before. The snippets Milly had given on the news in the days running up to the demonstration had been only the barest details – enough for him to formulate his opinion that whatever it was that Lloyd and his Band of Merry Mechanics were up to sounded downright dangerous, but it had barely touched upon this notion the four of them had about machines connecting so closely with humans that they were, in fact, using them as an energy source.

The Lancelot, a sakuradite-powered machine… That had been intimate _enough_. He'd felt at one with it whilst piloting it, even though he had his heart and the Lancelot had its Yggdrasil Drive. To be closer than even _that_…?

It was insanity. Couldn't Lloyd see that? Couldn't Cecile and Lakshata and Nina see that? Perhaps Lloyd he wasn't surprised at, and he admitted he didn't know much about Lakshata Chawla, but Cecile and Nina…? Didn't _they_ realise that it was utter _madness_?

But maybe they just couldn't understand. He maintained, and always had, that it simply wasn't possible for anyone but a Knightmare pilot to know what it was like to use one. He knew Cecile had piloted before, albeit only a few times, and very briefly. Even _she_… probably didn't understand.

And Lloyd Asplund never would.

No, maybe it wasn't even an issue of common sense. Maybe it was just ignorance.

Lloyd seemed to have perked up a little now that the demonstration itself was about to get underway; he gestured offstage and spoke again once the sea of muttered opinion had quietened down:

"So we'll begin, then, and show you exactly what we're talking about. Allow me to introduce our pilots for the demonstration, former members of the Knights of the Round, Gino Weinberg and Anya Alstreim."

They hadn't changed much. Gino had always been exceptionally tall for his age, but didn't appear to have grown much more, and still wore that good-natured grin like a badge; Anya had matured a little facially, grown slightly taller and curvier, and the way her pink hair brushed over her shoulders made it obvious that it had grown quite a bit, even if she preferred to wear it in the same style even three years later – her expression, however, remained as jaded as ever.

They came up onto the platform; Gino waving, Anya not.

"Which of you is going to go first?" Cecile asked.

"I will!" Gino volunteered immediately; he turned towards the Knightmares. "I'm doing the Mars, right?"

Cecile gave a nod.

"The nerve-interfacing system of the Mars System Prototype does, at this point, require quite a bit of physical strength to enable the pilot to make the Knightmare move," she replied. "We're hopeful that more research will eliminate this drawback."

Gino gave a dismissive wave of his hand and started towards the Mars – its bodywork a dark red to match the colour of its namesake planet.

"Shall I just get in?"

Lloyd nodded this time.

"Yes, just get in. We have a little trick up our sleeve…"

Gino shrugged, hopped down off the platform and went to the red Knightmare, easily clambering up into the cockpit and letting it slide back into the body of the machine. It audibly locked and the crowd began to murmur again.

"But now we can't see him," Nunnally said softly, not really speaking to Suzaku. "Wasn't the point of this so that we could see the new technology working…?"

"Yeah, but… The Knightmare won't work if the cockpit isn't locked," Suzaku responded anyway. "It's a safety feature."

"To make sure the pilot can't fall out?"

"Right."

But Lloyd _did_ have a trick up his sleeve. He took out a little ear-fitting comm. device from his pocket, activated it and put it on.

"Gino, if you can hear me," he said, "I want you to release the safety lock on the little metal box to the right of your control system and pull the lever inside it down until it clicks."

There was a long moment of silence and complete stillness about the Mars; and then the sound of working machinery began to resonate from it, and the four gleaming red metal panels which made up the chestpiece suddenly slid back beneath the shoulder and lower abdomen plates of the Knightmare, completely revealing the front of the cockpit, in which Gino was grinning.

"That's cool," he commented, looking around at his suddenly-expanded view.

"This isn't a regular feature," Cecile replied, speaking over the microphone. "We have been locking into an alternative, back-up variation of the Ejection System, which sometimes fails; the best place for evacuation, should the Ejection System jam and prevent the pilot's escape, would be here, through the chest of the Knightmare, but this as it is now—"

"Is idiotic," Lloyd finished dryly, interrupting her as he took the comm. device back off. "I encased the release lever inside a metal box which remains locked unless opened by the pilot, but if it was to somehow open accidentally during battle… And believe me, stranger things have happened."

He'd maybe said it to wipe the grin off Gino's now-very-exposed face, but Gino didn't seem overtly bothered.

"Come on, let's go!" he cried excitedly from the cockpit. "I'm aching to try this baby out!"

"Alright, alright," Lakshata said lazily. "See those little patches attached to thin wires? There should be six of them looped under the control panel."

"Got them!" Gino replied, grabbing hold of them and holding them up.

"Be gentle with them!" Lloyd snapped. "They're very sensitive."

"They're connected to the Mars' system," Cecile said. "You interface with the Mars via them. Gino, you need to put one on each of your temples, wrists and thighs."

Gino obediently stuck them all on and looked back at Cecile expectantly.

"Okay, I guess you can start it now," Lloyd said, fishing into his pocket again and taking out what was presumably the key to the Mars System Prototype.

He threw it with an arching shot to Gino, who caught it and began to look about for the ignition.

Nunnally looked at Suzaku again.

"It doesn't look like they've tested this before, does it?" she whispered to him; her expression was very concerned.

"No, it doesn't," Suzaku agreed; though he had come to this conclusion himself quite a while ago.

He was surprised at Lloyd, given how meticulous he knew him to be. What if, after all this, the Mars and the Jupiter didn't work…?

"I hope Gino and Anya are okay," Nunnally said, looking back at the Mars.

"Well, Lloyd is going to be in a _lot_ of trouble if they aren't," Suzaku replied blandly.

But Gino himself didn't appear to have the same inhibitions as either Nunnally or Suzaku; he found the ignition port and slid the key in, giving it a sharp turn. At once the Mars visibly came to life, the backlight in the cockpit coming on and the machinery within the Knightmare's metal shell beginning to push and manoeuvre—

Gino winced and clutched at the controls, his knuckles visibly turning white.

"Gino!" Cecile called to him from the platform. "Are you alright? If it's uncomfortable, turn it off again."

"…No." Gino opened his blue eyes, and at length smiled again. "No, it's okay now. It just… took me by surprise." He shook his head. "Packs quite a punch…"

"Are you ready to move?"

Gino nodded, gripped at the controls again and gave an experimental push forward on the right one; and the right arm of the Mars moved as his did.

"Hey, it's a lot less complicated than you guys made it sound!" he said, sounding somewhat indignant. His grin was at high-tide again as he took complete control of the Mars, manoeuvring it almost as easily as he had the Tristan.

"Well, yes, the controls are virtually identical to that of the older models," Lakshata drawled. "It's only the power system which differs – the power system being _you_, Mr Weinberg."

"Does it have a Float System?" Gino asked, looking around the cockpit.

Nina shook her head.

"That would be extremely taxing on the pilot," she said quietly.

Gino laughed.

"I can handle it!" he declared from the Mars.

The crowd was applauding appreciatively at this point and Gino was basking in it, clearly enjoying himself.

"It's impressive, isn't it?" Nunnally said to Suzaku. "I was worried, but… it seems like it was okay after all, hm?"

Suzaku gave a nod and got up.

"I'm going to go and find where the hell Schneizel has got to," he said. "Will you be okay?"

"Oh, I…" She trailed off, then nodded. "Yes, I'll be okay. Ohgi and Villetta are still here, and…" She trailed off again, nodding downwards with a smile at her lap, which was still occupied by Ohgi and Villetta's three year old daughter.

"Alright. I'll try to be quick." Suzaku put his hand on her shoulder, then turned and left, getting out of the seating area and away from the crowd and the demonstration.

Schneizel was just a distraction. Yes, he did wonder where he'd gone, since he usually obediently followed Suzaku around when he was dressed as Zero, that pale red gleam in his eyes; he presumed he was with Cornelia, who had allegedly shown up (which admittedly surprised him a little, since Cornelia hadn't been in Japan for years).

But an urgency to locate Schneizel wasn't why Suzaku had left. He really hadn't been able to bring himself to watch the demonstration anymore. Gino seemed to be alright now – _more_ than alright, by the looks of it – but at first, when the new power-generating mechanism had first connected to his nervous system…

It had hurt him. It had been obvious.

He heard Lakshata speak again over the microphone as he got to one of the long roofed walkways of the main Ashford Academy building, which lay completely deserted; her voice seemed louder still to him for this silence:

"Gino Weinberg, demonstrating the nervous system interface procedure of the Mars System Prototype – and the beginning of a new frontier in Knightmare Frame technology. The intimacy between pilot and Knightmare achieved by this system allows for potential higher performance by both than ever before."

Suzaku didn't want to listen to her, didn't want to have to hear any of them preach about pilots and Knightmares and how hard or easy they could make it for them to completely mechanise into one. What next? Would they move on to creating human-machine hybrids for greater enhanced performance yet again, as V.V. and Bartley had done to Jeremiah Gottwald…?

He followed the length of the walkway, knowing it; followed the whole path he knew well, and still knew, even all these years later. When he reached the roof of the main building, he realised that he had inadvertently given himself an even better view of the demonstration, although he was further away; but it was empty, too, which was what he had wanted.

They'd spent a lot of time up here. _He_ more so by accident, mostly because this had been Lelouch's favourite hiding-place. He had cut class a lot, and Suzaku had usually found him up here, sitting with his back against the raised wall that ran around the edge of the roof, his long legs stretched out across the warm concrete and his nose in a book.

He had always blinked innocently up at him when his shadow had fallen over him, making it difficult for him to read, as though he thought he hadn't done anything wrong; and he had always given him that dry, quasi-mocking smile whenever Suzaku began lecturing him about constantly skipping class.

(Once, Suzaku had thrown Lelouch's book over the edge of the roof and Lelouch hadn't spoken to him for a week; he'd never been able to decide if that had been a worse punishment or not than the week's worth of detention he had gotten for being the one guilty of throwing a hardback off the roof and hitting a third year on the head.

But by the Friday, the detention teacher had realised that Suzaku Kururugi was, in fact, extremely well-behaved, and so had left him with his lines to go and attend to a more pressing matter; at which Lelouch had swanned into the classroom, sat down next to him and proceeded to write half of his lines for him. He still hadn't spoken to him, but Suzaku had shook his head and smiled and let him have his pride.

And if the teacher noticed that one half of the lines were much neater than the other half, and indeed all those that had been handed in all week, she didn't say anything about it.)

Suzaku sat down now where Lelouch had often sat, the demonstration a dull noise in the background; it sounded like it was Anya's turn to demonstrate the Jupiter Frame now, but he didn't care to turn and look. He wanted to take his mask off, but in a public place like this, and with so many people here who had been involved in everything that had happened three years ago…

He just couldn't. He might be alone up here right now, but it wasn't worth the risk.

He was supposed to be _dead_, after all.

He _felt_ dead, but not in the way he would have liked. He had long craved death, _true_ death, not just as a punishment for his sins – but, like C.C., as an escape. This thing they called life, what seemed like an endless river of pure existence, solely for the sake of it—

There had been times he had been glad to be alive, but those times were all past now. He felt that they would never be his again, because _Lelouch_ would never be his again; and so felt that there was no reason for him to stay here anymore. He had heard Lelouch's words, spoken to his parents in the World of C, and he had agreed with them; that the reason humans existed, and thus needed a world that changed, was to pursue happiness.

Even if it was a futile chase, that was their purpose.

But Suzaku knew now that his own chase was futile – or had _become_ it, had congealed into emptiness, with no relief in sight but that of death. It was ironic that Lelouch was both the cause of his desire to live and his desire to die—

As well as being the cause of his inability to fulfil either.

Once, during the first year following Lelouch's death, he had tried to kill himself. He remembered it vividly, because of how vividly he had failed. He had loaded the gun carefully, cocked it and put it to his head; he'd been standing before the mirror to see himself do it, as though for proof, because he had failed to die so many times before. It shouldn't have been difficult, for a gun was a weapon designed to kill, _mechanised_ as such – all he had to do was pull the trigger and that would be the end of it.

It had been a desperate action, seeking a cure for the crushing sickness of grief, the hollow anger he felt, the jealousy he directed towards Lelouch for leaving him behind, for cursing him to live for what seemed like forever—

When he had come back to his senses, he had seen the red fade from the eyes of his reflection; and had found the gun safely sitting on the dresser.

He hadn't been able to die, because Lelouch hadn't been able to let him.

Well, Lelouch had said that as well. Impaled, dying, he had leaned against Suzaku and touched his mask, smearing blood down the left side of it, and whispered to him that this was his punishment.

_Life_.

His bitter reverie was interrupted by screaming.

High-pitched, agonized, terrified screaming.

It was definitely a girl; and before he'd even gotten to his feet and whirled in the direction of the demonstration, he'd already concluded who it was screaming like that, though he hoped he was wrong—

He wasn't. Even from here, he could see Anya rocked right forwards in the open cockpit of the Jupiter System Prototype, clutched at her skull with clawed fingers, screaming and screaming, shaking her head wildly back and forth. The Knightmare itself was shuddering, clearly malfunctioning as the bond between it and Anya presumably severed violently.

The crowd seemed to be panicking, beginning to spread and widen, backing away from the Knightmare; and on the stage, the four scientists responsible were floundering, arguing with one another. Eventually Lloyd started towards the Jupiter, but was pushed aside by Gino, who had come sprinting back up onto the platform, and from there hauled himself up the front of the Knightmare. He grabbed hold of Anya around her waist and pulled her out of the cockpit. She fell silent at once, shaking in Gino's arms as he brought her back down to the platform; she was crowded around by Cecile, Lakshata and Nina, even as Gino still held her up. Lloyd ignored her, going to the Jupiter Frame himself to kill the ignition.

Anya suddenly broke away from them, wrenching herself out of Gino's grip and running off the platform, across the grass and towards the school building.

Though he usually made it his business to keep away from people who had known him well as Suzaku Kururugi as much as he could, he wanted to see if Anya was alright; it overwrote sense at this point after seeing her in such agony, and he went to the stairs, taking them two and three at a time, hoping to head her off.

She actually ran into him as he emerged from the staircase, half-blinded by tears; he took her shoulders as she tried to pull away from him, holding her still.

"Let go, let _go_!" she cried, trying to break his grip; the way she was still shaking her head had loosened the ribbon she tied her hair up with, half of it having fallen out across her face and over her shoulder, trailing down her back.

"Calm down, I'm not going to hurt you," Suzaku said firmly; he shook her a bit. "_Anya_!"

She gave a little gasp, looking up at him through her bedraggled pink hair; and then it was his turn to almost gasp himself.

Her eyes…

She flinched as he raised his hand to push away her hair, but opened her eyes again when he lowered it, revealing that what he had seen hadn't been a trick of the light or of her tears—

There was a red ring around her irises; the telltale sign of someone under the influence of Geass. Suzaku knew that. He'd seen it on himself, on Schneizel, and…

Yes, he'd seen it on Anya before, as well.

But this… This couldn't be anything to do with that. Marianne, Lelouch and Nunnally's mother, had used her own Geass on Anya to preserve her consciousness after V.V. had killed her, but she had disappeared with Charles in the Sword of Akasha, both of them destroyed by the World of C after Lelouch, C.C. and Suzaku himself had rejected _their_ world.

Hadn't that freed Anya completely?

Anya blinked at him, then tilted her head to the side and frowned deeply. It was as though… she'd never seen Zero before; or… as if she was seeing _through_ Zero, right at—

"…_Suzaku_?" she whispered.

He let go of her; his hands jerking off her as though she had burned him. He cursed himself for it afterwards, knowing that he shouldn't act unsettled, but he couldn't help it, because he _was_. How… how did she…?

C.C. and Nunnally. They were the only two living people who knew. Lelouch had taken the knowledge that Suzaku Kururugi still lived on beneath the mask of Zero with him to his grave. Of course, Suzaku had always felt that there might be others who _suspected_ that he wasn't dead and instead existed only as Zero, but Anya wasn't one of them. He'd considered people like Jeremiah, Cornelia, perhaps even _Kallen_…

But not Anya Alstreim.

He said nothing. Anya reached out towards him and he was about to recoil out of her range—

Her eyes slid closed and she toppled forwards, her hand dropping to her side as she collapsed. He caught her, feeling her fall completely limp in his grasp, and sank to the ground with her, half-supporting her and wondering what he should do with her.

But he was spared the pain of puzzling it further; Gino came around the corner into the walkway, calling for Anya. He gave a little nod of acknowledgement on seeing Suzaku holding her and approached quickly.

"Did she faint?" he asked, kneeling down next to her.

"Yes," Suzaku replied shortly, letting Gino take her and straightening, backing away a few steps. "She seemed very disorientated."

"That Knightmare really did a number on her," Gino muttered, picking Anya up under her back and knees, cradling her small frame against his chest. "She was doing fine and then… I don't know, she just… leaned forward and grabbed at her head and started screaming… Maybe it was just a system malfunction or something, like a short-circuit…"

"Maybe."

"Well…" Gino paused, then nodded to Suzaku. "Thanks for stopping her cracking her head open, Lord Zero."

"You're welcome, Lord Weinberg," Suzaku replied expressionlessly.

Gino appeared nonplussed, but finally gave him another nod and a pale little smile and turned away, leaving with Anya.

Suzaku leaned against the wall when they were gone, trying to calm himself down. Anya had called him by his name – the real name nobody but Nunnally had called him by for three years. Her tone had been questioning, implying that it had been nothing but a guess, but…

On what basis had she _made_ such a guess? Why here, why now? Had it only been because of the Geass…? If it was, then it meant that it was possibly not truly her own guess, nor would she remember it after the influence was broken.

But where had it come from? How had it been cast over her? Suzaku couldn't think of anybody who had had Geass that was still living at this point. Lelouch, Rolo, Charles, Marianne, Bismarck…

They were all dead.

Of course, that didn't mean that there couldn't be others out there who had it. Code holders like C.C. could give Geass to as many people as they liked.

Maybe… well, that _had_ to be it. The influence Anya had just been under didn't seem like any of those he had seen previously; even Lelouch's, which had been able to even make people do things against their very nature, hadn't been able to make them utter things which they didn't know.

He wondered who it had been. It had to have been someone close to her during the demonstration. He didn't think it was Gino. Cecile, Nina, Lakshata… he knew he couldn't be certain, but they all seemed unlikely candidates.

_Lloyd_, then…?

But, again, he couldn't be certain. He hadn't been watching the Jupiter System Prototype demonstration. Anyone could have come near the Knightmare to cast Geass over Anya – and he wouldn't know about it because he hadn't been looking.

He cursed himself again, this time his own shallow melancholy. He hadn't wanted to watch the demonstration because it had sickened him, he had wanted to be alone on the roof so that he could quietly remember Lelouch instead, but he _should_ have watched regardless.

Nunnally shouldn't have allowed him to leave her – but he couldn't blame her. It wasn't her fault. It was _his_.

He pushed away from the wall and left the walkway, making his way back to Nunnally. A lot of the crowd had dissipated now – clearly the demonstration had come to an abrupt end with Anya's little episode, which Milly was reporting on a mile a minute down near the empty stage.

Ohgi and Villetta were still here, though, and their daughter was still on Nunnally's lap – they had been joined, finally, by Schneizel and Cornelia, who were standing back together immersed in what appeared to be rather grave conversation.

"Oh, there you are!" Nunnally said as he approached. "Schneizel came back by himself. He _was_ with Cornelia after all."

"Mm." Suzaku gave a nod. "Looks like it's over, then."

"Yes…" Nunnally gave a little sigh. "We were right to be worried?"

"I think so."

"I hope Anya is alright. I saw Gino carrying her back from the school building."

"Did you see anything else?"

"…Like what?"

"Like anyone near the stage during the demonstration."

Nunnally thought, but finally shook her head.

"No, nobody but the scientists, Gino, Milly and her camera crew."

"Okay." Suzaku gave a little sigh. "It doesn't matter. Are you ready to go?"

Nunnally nodded and spoke to Ohgi and Villetta's daughter, who, at length, clambered out of her lap.

Something clutched in the little girl's hands caught Suzaku's eye, and, as she ran back to her parents, holding it tightly, he laid a hand on Nunnally's shoulder.

"You made that for her?" he asked softly.

Nunnally gave him an abashed little smile.

"It's the only one I ever learned how to make properly," she answered.

Suzaku looked at the delicate white crane again as the little girl showed it to her parents.

"It's the best one, Nunnally," he said.

"Do you like it?" she asked, taking his hand – again, perhaps to feel for his honesty. "The crane?"

So he was honest.

"It's my favourite," he replied.

* * *

_During that year they were apart, when Lelouch knew nothing about Zero or C.C. or Geass, tricked into the false security of a life he thought had always been his; and when Suzaku knew it all, knew that Rolo Lamperouge was not his brother and that he was responsible for Euphemia's death and that his ability to bend people's wills was merely repressed beneath his rewritten consciousness…_

_During that year, when he had no contact with Lelouch whatsoever after selling him out in exchange for his place as the Knight of Seven, Suzaku had often lain awake at night and wondered about Geass. _

_He had wondered what it was like to have something like that sharing your senses, feeding on your body; he had wondered how you learned to __**use**__ something like that._

_How had Lelouch summoned it? How had it felt when it had activated? Had it hurt?_

_By that point he had seen Charles use it too – on Lelouch, no less. And he had seen both C.C. and V.V., Code holders, gift-givers of Geass. All of them, they had treated Geass as a tool, and only that._

_Was it like piloting a Knightmare? Was it the same kind of experience – mechanical, methodical, knowing how to make it work and using it as such?_

_Because he had realised then that Geass had been Lelouch's weapon – his Lancelot, which only he could use._

_The thing which he had __**intended**__ to use to change the world._

_(Because wasn't that what Geass was? A mechanism to bend others, and thus the world, to the way you wanted?)_

_One such night, restless, he had thrown his Knight of Seven uniform jacket over his pyjamas and gone down to the vast room where the Knights of the Round's Knightmares were kept; and had looked at them all, lined up in darkness and in silence, somehow both sinister and solemn._

_Ghosts and machines, all at once._

_He had passed them, lined up in order; Galahad, Tristan, Mordred…_

_He had pressed his hand against the cold smooth metal of the Lancelot, looking up at it, at its majestic but impassive details, and remembering—_

_Well. Lelouch. It all came back to Lelouch Lamperouge, didn't it?_

_He had put his hands into the pockets of his jacket, the crisp sound coming from one of them startling him in the quiet; he had pulled out the source, finding it to be one of Lloyd's printed-out diagnostics sheets, given to him about a week ago. He'd jammed it into his pocket on leaving the lab and forgotten all about it, having had other things to worry about._

_He had sank to the floor next to the Lancelot and, after tearing off a piece of the paper to make it into a square, began to fold it; mechanically, following a system ingrained into him years and years ago, before Britannia had even realised that there were sakuradite mines worth pillaging in Japan, before he'd even met Lelouch, before he'd even started to realise how unfair the world was…_

_He had placed the crane on the floor when he was finished and sat and looked at it for a while. It was something that all Japanese children were taught to do at a very young age. It was a symbol of friendship and loyalty, which was why he had—_

_The door had opened and he had scrambled to his feet, grabbing the crane and putting it behind his back. He hadn't been ashamed of it, but he hadn't wanted anyone else to see it, either. Some of the older Knights of the Round might not be pleased to see such a blatant symbol of Japanese identity in his possession, especially down here, and with him wearing his uniform jacket._

_Gino or Anya would have been interested, but he hadn't wanted Gino pawing at it, inquiring what it was, and he hadn't wanted Anya taking a picture of it for her blog._

_But the intruder had been none of his comrades; but Lloyd._

"_You know, most people have a cup of tea or go for a walk in the garden when they can't sleep," Lloyd had mused upon seeing him, perhaps sarcastically._

"_But I'm "special", right, Lloyd?" Suzaku had replied, his tone equally sardonic._

_Lloyd had laughed._

"_That may be," he had murmured, clearly amused. "Having a look at the lovely repair job Cecile and I did on your Lancelot for you after you banged it up in Area 8?"_

_Suzaku had nodded absently._

"_Yeah, you both did a great job. Thanks, Lloyd."_

_Lloyd had hummed to himself gleefully._

"_You know," he had mused, coming closer to Suzaku, "I don't think I've ever come across anyone who is able to integrate as closely with a mere machine as you are. Of course, I say "mere machine" only superficially – your Lancelot is anything but. But it's also not a living organism; I truly think that for someone to interface as closely with something like the Lancelot as you do, Suzaku, they would need to have an extremely acute understanding of how much like machines humans really are. Or, at least, how much like machines humans can __**become**__."_

"_I can't say I understand anything like that."_

"_You do." Lloyd's eyes had gleamed behind his glasses. "You must do, or you couldn't love the Lancelot the way you do. After everything… you're still not afraid of it, hm?"_

_Suzaku had straightened, gazing at Lloyd impassively._

"_What's there to be afraid of?" he had asked, his tone almost challenging, and most certainly defensive. "It's the only way I can win. It's the only reason I'm here – that I'm the Knight of Seven."_

_Lloyd's only reply had been to laugh quietly again._

_And as he had, Suzaku had crushed the crane behind his back._

* * *

Something curious: I found I paper crane in Subway last Friday. It was there all by itself on an empty table in the Subway in the Guild building of the University of Birmingham. I was pretty weirded out, since it was the day after I had started posting this fic, but, yeah… It didn't look like it was going anywhere so I grabbed it.

The lesson here is that paper cranes (apparently) turn up in the strangest places.

O.o

Okay, to address a more important issue. I apologise if you're sitting at you computer thinking "Hey, WTF? Make with the SuzakuxLelouch-ness already!"… which is a completely valid question, given that Lelouch wasn't even _in_ this chapter, and has thus far only been in it briefly having a bit of a catfight with C.C., who still completely owns his ass. Gyah, please. Have patience with me!

He _will_ be in it! There will be SuzakuxLelouch-ness!

Just not yet. Wait. It'll be worth it.

:)

(Oh, and I also apologise for Nina being in it. I can't stand her, like the other hundred per cent of the _Code Geass_ fanbase. I was totally hoping Suzaku would kill her after that FLEIJA/FREYA/whatever-the-hell-they-call-it fiasco. You know, after he went crazy…er. But he didn't. I was devastated.)

But I had fun with Gino and Anya.

And speaking of Anya…

What's up with _that_?

RobinRocks xXx


	3. Meiuqer

Whoo, thankyou all for the reviews! :) I'm so happy that people seem to like this fic so far, because I am really enjoying writing it! I am also thrilled that people understand what I'm trying to do with this fic (particularly with Suzaku) and haven't been put off by the thus-far lack of SuzaxLulu goodness…

Thankyou to: **Poisoned-Inkwell, Ryuuko1, ChasingCaffeine, Nusku, Nearu, Bligy, Deus3xMachina, Fallen One-Winged Tenshi, Lost In A Dark Wood, Rikanu, SeraphChronoMage, Vermillion Lies, KuroitsukiNoMai, blaqkout, Aria DC al Fine **and** Arkaham!**

To answer a few questions (I thought I'd do it here to clear up these issues for anybody who is interested):

**One:** The information on the Knightmares – sakuradite, Yggdrasil Drive, Core Luminous, yadda yadda… No, I didn't make any of it up. I asked my good friend Wikipedia to cough up the inside scoop on the Knightmares. Of course, it _being_ Wikipedia means that the authenticity of the content isn't one hundred per cent guaranteed, but it all sounds about right from what I can remember from _Code Geass_ itself. It was probably written by some picky mecha fanboy who would never forgive himself for making a mistake, anyway, so… Yeah. Thanks, Wiki! :D

**Two: **Essentially… this is actually on the same note, but no, I also didn't make up the stuff about the Lancelot Frame having extra sakuradite sources aside from the Yggdrasil Drive scattered throughout the bodywork (making it harder to pilot). Wikipedia again. Incidentally, the Lancelot Frame also never had an Ejection System – no doubt to add a few points to Suzaku's Emo Ranking.

So, um, yeah. that's that. Oh, and to answer a question in advance: If the title of this chapter throws you, try reading it backwards (which is what's significant about it).

(And no, it's not French.)

The Ghost in the Machine

III – Meiuqer

_In the end, maybe it hadn't just been the red in Lelouch's eye (which in turn came to reflect in his own) which had driven him to the finality of that checkmate._

_There had been other reds; other shades of it, and other reasons for it._

_He had thought of Euphemia; the crimson in her eyes and on her dress, both tragically her own and tragically not._

_He had thought of Lelouch; of the time on Kaminejima, when he had split his mask and watched the blood run down his face beneath it (and thought less of his Geass, because his Geass was a given)._

_And he had thought of Kallen Stadtfeld – or Kallen Kozuki, as she had fully become. Kallen, who had seemed to rebel against everything she possibly could, with her red hair and red uniform and red Knightmare._

_He had barely thought during that final battle with her. Never had he been so passionate and yet so mechanical about anything – such a paradox shouldn't have existed, or, at least, it didn't have the right to, but it __**did**__ within him at that moment._

_He, Knight of Zero, for whom Lelouch was entirely responsible; and she, Ace of the Black Knights, for whom Lelouch was entirely responsible._

_He, in his white and gold machine, to match Lelouch's robes; and she, in her red machine, to match Lelouch's eyes._

_They had fought, the battle difficult, laboured; both machines so technologically and combat-efficiently advanced it was almost ridiculous. For a long time there was only scraping, clashing, damage depleted by equal strength, matched skill and machinery in perfect tandem._

_But by that point he had learned. Like C.C. even giving Geass to Lelouch in the first place, the death-defying command Lelouch had given to __**him**__ had not only been for protection, for the preservation of his life – it had also been a gift, to use to make him stronger still. And when he forced himself into a despondent state of mind, one of decorative self-defeat, Lelouch's Geass rewired him and made him fight—_

_Harder, faster and better; because he wanted to live._

_(Live. The command was live, live on, survive any way you can, Suzaku, because I'll never forgive you if you don't.)_

_Of course, it had been different that last time. He wasn't supposed to win. Suzaku Kururugi, Knight of Zero, somehow traitor to both Japan and Britannia, was supposed to disappear forever – die, but die only superficially._

_So Lelouch's command had been even stronger, his hold on Suzaku Kururugi tighter than ever:_

_Die, but survive it._

_So the only way to do it had been to completely mechanise himself against Kallen; all three components sliding together perfectly as the Lancelot Albion stood against the Guren Mk-II that last time._

_Pilot. Knightmare. Geass._

_The sound of his breathing had merged with that of the running of the Yggdrasil Drive. His pulse had set itself against the tremors of the mechanisms working tirelessly within the Lancelot's framework. The sweat had clung to him and he had shuddered and then he had smiled – remembering the first time, and at that moment wondering which he loved more:_

_Lelouch or the Lancelot._

_He had decided that it would have to be Lelouch, for Lelouch had longer left to live than the Lancelot; perhaps not much longer, but long enough to reciprocate his love, to be patient with him, as he always had been._

_Yes, Lelouch had always been patient with him. That was why he had to go back._

_Die, but survive it._

_He had taken control of the Lancelot and allowed the Geass to take control of him; trusting the mechanism of Lelouch's command as the Lancelot had always trusted him._

_Kallen had been oblivious to it. For her, it had been but another hard battle with the person who had become her arch-nemesis in matters regarding Lancelots and Guren Mk-IIs: Suzaku Kururugi, who seemed to want to die but never did._

_She, all in red, hadn't known that it had been beyond his power._

_It had had nothing to do with her._

_(Especially once it was over.)_

* * *

Nunnally was by the window.

She looked up when Suzaku entered and moved to close the blinds, glancing at him as she did so.

"I'm alone," she said.

Suzaku gave a nod, closed the door and took off his mask, giving his head a little shake to free up a few brown curls which had been pressed against his forehead.

"Do you get tired of it?" Nunnally asked quietly, watching the mask gleam under his arm as he approached the desk. "Every day, hiding like this…?"

"I don't have much of a choice, do I?" he replied blandly, putting the mask down on the desk, and then sitting on the edge next to it. "This is all that's left for me now. But then…" He paused, running his fingers over the mask's smooth surface. "…Maybe I was always hiding anyway, even when I wasn't."

"Weren't we all?" Nunnally said levelly. "Nunnally Lamperouge, Lelouch Lamperouge… Those were never our names. _You_ know that. Well, everyone knows that now, but you _always_ knew that."

Suzaku smiled briefly at her over his shoulder.

"I wasn't blaming him. How could I? It was an agreement. I accepted this."

Nunnally returned the smile – but hers was more twisted.

"He knew you wouldn't refuse him, though."

"Oh, it was well-played," Suzaku agreed absently, turning away from her again to look uninterestedly at one of the paintings on the far wall of the office. "Everything… always so well-played…"

"How you flatter him – even now, when you longer need to stroke his ego to keep him happy. No wonder he was so attached to you."

"I'm not so kind to everyone, Nunnally."

"You are to me," she teased.

"Of course."

"You're nice to me, Suzaku."

"Always."

"Because you're my knight?"

"Right. And I have to watch my step – because if I displease you, it'll be off with my head."

"Or hung, drawn and quartered."

"Would you really do that to me, Nunnally?"

"I might," she giggled. "If you're really, really bad."

He faltered, still not looking at her. He knew she was only playing – it was idle banter between them, an old game. She was better-tempered than her brother had been. Lelouch had been sulky sometimes. And sharp-tongued, too.

Cruel, even, when he had wanted to be.

So he knew she meant nothing. But bad? Really, really _bad_? She joked that she might have him executed in a truly medieval fashion if he did something awful, when he stood before her, both of them knowing full well that he was a murderer? When the boy they both laughed so fondly about was one of those whom he had killed?

Oh, it wasn't just Lelouch. Suzaku had killed more people than he cared to count. He had killed his own _father_ when he was only ten years old.

And it wasn't just killing. He'd done a lot of terrible things. Things he didn't want to think about. Things which he considered, perhaps grimly, being hung, drawn and quartered for was really too mild a punishment.

No, he was not so kind to everyone – especially himself.

"Perhaps the Iron Maiden," he mused at length.

Nunnally gave a little sigh.

"I'll make a list," she replied dryly, finally moving her wheelchair back behind the desk. "What did you want, anyway? I presume you didn't just come in here to discuss execution methods in case you step so far out of line I might require knowledge of them."

"I wanted to know if you knew where Schneizel is."

"Oh." Nunnally tilted her head. "No, I haven't seen him at all today. He might be with Cornelia again. Did you need to talk to him?"

"Well, I haven't seen much of him either, but I wanted to talk to him about yesterday."

"The demonstration?" Nunnally gave a little shake of her head. "But he wasn't there for most of it. That's why you went to look for him, isn't it?"

"Yes, but… he might have seen something, or…" Suzaku frowned. "Well, I have to admit… I want to know what the deal with Cornelia is, too. Three years ago, when she first went back to Britannia, she and Schneizel didn't seem to be on particularly friendly terms. But these past few months… I've often overheard him talking to her on the phone, and yesterday they seemed very preoccupied with each other…"

"Do you think they're up to something?" Nunnally asked, biting at her bottom lip in concern. "But… since the war ended, the remaining members of the Britannian Royal Family like me have been on good terms with other countries—"

"Most of you are diplomatic figures, right?" Suzaku interrupted, finally turning properly and leaning over the desk towards her. "Spread throughout the different countries which Britannia used to occupy? You and Schneizel stayed here in Japan, a lot of your other half-brothers and half-sisters have been spread out… I mean, it makes sense. Lelouch abolished the territorial regime and gave all the "areas" back their proper names, but those countries couldn't just go back to the way they were before Britannia took them over. The governments would dissolve into chaos after so long being suppressed and ruled over by the regimes put in place by the Britannian occupational forces. So it makes total sense. But Cornelia… She wasn't placed as a diplomatic figure in any of the countries which needed them."

"No, I think she just went back to the homeland with Jeremiah and Guilford." Nunnally gave an uneasy shrug. "What's so suspicious about that? She's the Second Princess."

"Look, I'm not accusing her of anything," Suzaku said quickly. "I just wonder… what she's been doing for three years."

"Perhaps being a diplomatic figure in Britannia?"

"Maybe, but… you'd think we'd hear more about her, if that was the case. Your involvement with Japan is often on the news. But Cornelia… when she left, it was like she completely disappeared. And then, suddenly, she's frequently communicating with Schneizel, and then she appears in Japan at the demonstration—"

"Perhaps she accompanied Gino and Anya." Nunnally toyed with a strand of her long wavy hair. "I have to say, I haven't really spoken to her yet, even though she's staying here. She seems to be quite busy."

"If she only came over with Gino and Anya, why is she so busy?"

"_Suzaku_." Nunnally's tone sharpened, her large lilac eyes flashing a silent warning to him. "I swear you _look_ for trouble sometimes. Please don't go picking a fight with Cornelia. Or Schneizel either, for that matter."

"I never fight with Schneizel."

_Because Schneizel always does exactly what I tell him to…_

"Hm." Nunnally almost scowled at him. "Well, you know I like it best when everyone gets along – so please, for _me_."

Suzaku rolled his jade eyes at her, finally taking his weight off the desk.

"Of course, Nunnally," he muttered.

"Because you're always nice to me." She stuck her tongue out at him. "And don't forget it."

"Or it'll be the Iron Maiden for me, right?"

Nunnally waved her hand at him wearily.

"Please take your preoccupation with the contents of a fifteenth-century torture chamber elsewhere," she sighed, pulling the paperwork she had previously put aside back towards her.

"Alright, alright…" Suzaku retrieved his mask, bowed to her in a flourishing, quasi-mocking fashion and left; hearing her laugh quietly, more to herself, as he did.

Well, that hadn't gotten him very far. Perhaps Nunnally was right – perhaps he _was_ just looking for trouble. It wouldn't be anything new, would it? Even to this day, he distinctly remembered Anya asking him if he was a masochist, if he actively and deliberately sought to inflict pain and burden upon himself.

Maybe Anya had been right, too.

But _Anya_… She was part of his problem, the general unease that had crept up on him suddenly over the last twenty-four hours.

Anya and Schneizel and Cornelia and Lloyd. Four corners of a square he was certain wouldn't equate to a pretty paper crane if he cared to fold them all up together.

But maybe they weren't all part of the same problem. He knew he was jumping to conclusions – looking for someone to blame for his unsettlement.

Lloyd didn't necessarily have anything to do with what had happened to Anya yesterday at the demonstration.

And just because Cornelia and Schneizel suddenly seemed very pally with one another, to the point where Cornelia had shown up in Japan for the first time in three years, it didn't necessarily mean that they were up to something. They were half-brother and sister, after all.

And even if Lloyd _had_ had something to do with what had happened to Anya, and even if Cornelia and Schneizel _were_ up to something, it didn't necessarily mean that those two things had anything to do with each _other_.

Maybe he was only thinking this way out of spite because he didn't really like any of them.

Well, bar Anya. But there really _was_ a problem with Anya, so that wasn't Uncalled-For-Dislike-Paranoia – that was Totally-Justified-Paranoia.

Geass. It had definitely been Geass. He had lain awake last night, looking at the ceiling and turning over dozens of possibilities concerning how and who and where and why in his mind – some sensible, some outlandish, some purely fanciful.

There were still people out there under the influence of Geass – he could think of himself and Schneizel offhand without _even_ thinking. More still who had, at one point, been under its influence – neither Lelouch nor Rolo, he knew, had been sparing with their power. As for Geass users… he had already considered that five he knew about – Lelouch, Rolo, Charles, Marianne and Bismarck – were all dead, but that didn't mean they weren't more out there, not by any means.

Lastly, Code holders. C.C. was the only one he knew about still living – V.V. had been killed well over three years ago. But, again, that didn't mean that there weren't more out there somewhere.

So, Anya… It was possible that there was another Geass user out there – at _least_ one – who had used their Geass on her yesterday. He had re-evaluated, because yesterday, on deciding that the person would have had to be near the Jupiter System Prototype, he had been basing that presumption only on what he knew about Lelouch and Charles' Geass powers, respectively – they had both needed eye contact via a fairly close distance in order for the Geass to work.

But then, last night, he had considered Rolo's. Rolo hadn't needed eye contact. In fact, Rolo had been able to freeze quite a lot of people at once, without having to be particularly near any of them.

But when he put that aside… Did that mean that there was another Code holder – at _least_ another one – or was it simply C.C. giving out Geass to more people?

And what if it wasn't that at all? What if it had been something that had simply reacted with the fact that Anya had once had an extensive Geass cast over her? Marianne had been within Anya's heart for years, occasionally possessing her body wholly. Perhaps that prolonged exposure to Geass had simply made Anya highly susceptible to any kind of trace of it at all, or even things which merely mimicked its properties.

And maybe the thing which _had_ mimicked its properties was the Jupiter System Prototype.

But he didn't know – and none of those explanations shed any light whatsoever on why Anya had called him by his name while under the influence of Geass, be it quasi-Geass or faux-Geass or whatever. He also didn't know if that was a cause for concern or not. In keeping with the traditional rules of Geass, she shouldn't remember anything she had done or said whilst under its power – that was what both V.V. and Lelouch had told him at different points, anyway. But if it wasn't _real_ Geass, then did that manipulate the rules? Would she remember? Or did she already suspect that Zero was Suzaku Kururugi, with the Geass merely prompting her to voice her suspicion?

And if either of those were the case, would she keep quiet? He had gotten to know Anya well when they were both Knights of the Round, and according to his profile of her personality, he thought that maybe, even if she knew for certain that he lived and was Zero, she wouldn't tell anyone. Anya had never been particularly interested in anything that wasn't on her flip-phone screen or attacking her Mordred – she would get no pleasure out of sharing that kind of information.

But that been the Anya he had known well – the Anya from three years ago. She hadn't seemed much changed yesterday, but that didn't mean that she _hadn't_ changed. Her personality could be completely different now.

Or, if someone was using her, which was always a possibility, maybe they would be able to get information like that out of her.

He wondered how she was – if she had recovered. He had seen Cecile checking her pulse as he had left with Nunnally, Schneizel and Cornelia, but she'd still been limp in Gino's arms, dead to the world. He supposed there was no way of finding out, though, unless Cornelia _had_ come over with Gino and Anya and had thus been informed of Anya's condition following her collapse.

Maybe that was where she and Schneizel had gone.

In which case, he could simply add it to his list of Things To Interrogate Schneizel About Once He Got Hold Of Him; and from there perhaps begin to make sense of all this.

Providing that there _was_ an "all this" and he wasn't just, as Nunnally presumed, looking for trouble – maybe just as a distraction so that he didn't have to think about Lelouch for a little while.

Lelouch, who, like his sister, and like Anya, had often said that Suzaku seemed to enjoy making himself miserable by looking for reasons for him to dislike other people or for other people to dislike him.

Lelouch, whom he had beaten the hell out of the first day they had met – because he hadn't _wanted_ to like him, and he hadn't wanted Lelouch to like him back.

(But Lelouch had been so patient with him, hadn't he? So, so patient with fucked-up Suzaku Kururugi, who hated himself more than anybody else ever could have.)

* * *

He didn't happen across Schneizel until much later; it was late, and he had in fact stopped looking for him, having come across not a trace of neither him nor Cornelia all day.

But now that he had lost interest in finding him, at least for today, here he was, standing in the hall.

With Cornelia.

He stopped, but they had already noticed him, their conversation breaking off sharply, the topic clearly as brittle as glass; Cornelia's eyes narrowed slightly, but Schneizel's immediately took on that familiar red glow as he turned to Suzaku, bowing slightly to him.

"Lord Zero," he said.

"Schneizel," Suzaku responded curtly as he approached; he stopped, turning towards Cornelia and giving a small bow of his own. "Your Highness."

Cornelia gave a small nod of acknowledgement, but she didn't smile.

Three years had done little damage to her. Cornelia Li Britannia was a very beautiful woman, and as he could see Lelouch in Nunnally, he could see Euphemia in her – but her beauty was somehow yet different to that which her younger sister had possessed. There was an air of pride about her, even in the way she held herself; a strength, a certain breed of coldness, her eyes both jewels and blades. She wore white today, with silver detailing, her outfit not without similarities to the uniform of the Knights of the Round – and her hair fell in thick tendrils past her waist, completely free, almost as long as Euphy's had been.

Euphy had never carried a sword, however.

(But she could use a gun.)

Suzaku looked back at Schneizel, who had straightened again.

"Would you come with me for a moment?" he asked, knowing that Schneizel wouldn't refuse, or even try to make an excuse.

Schneizel nodded.

"Of course." He glanced at Cornelia. "Excuse us. I won't be long."

But Cornelia shook her head.

"It's alright. We were done here anyway." She stepped past them both. "Goodnight, gentlemen."

She left, her hair swinging in time with the rhythm of her confident stride.

"I do hope you haven't offended her, Lord Zero," Schneizel murmured.

"Never mind her," Suzaku replied sharply, starting to walk away as well. "Come on."

Schneizel followed him wordlessly; Suzaku made no attempt to converse with him as he led the way. So, they had stopped talking the moment they had noticed his presence – and Cornelia hadn't been very pleased to see him. There was no doubt in his mind that they were involved with something, Cornelia presumably more so – but Schneizel, who couldn't lie to him, was his ticket to finding out what.

Maybe it was none of his business – but if Cornelia was bringing whatever she was involved with over to Japan, even getting _Schneizel_ tangled up in it, he felt that he had a right to know what it was.

After all, Nunnally was in Japan, and it was _his_ job to protect her.

"This is a somewhat unorthodox place to talk," Schneizel observed mildly on arriving at their destination.

"It is," Suzaku agreed, standing across from him, "but no-one will disturb us down here."

"Is that an issue?"

"You tell me."

Schneizel blinked at him, but Suzaku made no further elaboration; at length Schneizel merely gave a slow nod, his eyes still glazed over by Lelouch's command.

"How may I be of service to you, Lord Zero?" he asked.

"Did you see what happened to Anya Alstreim at the demonstration yesterday?"

Schneizel shook his head.

"No. I was with Cornelia at the time of the demonstration of the Jupiter System Prototype."

"Where were you?"

"We were in the entrance hall of the Ashford Academy school building."

"Alone?"

"Yes."

"Alright." Suzaku gave a little sigh. "Did you see anyone yesterday who gave the appearance of possessing Geass?"

Schneizel tilted his head briefly.

"Geass?"

"That's right."

"No, I didn't."

Frustrated, Suzaku folded his arms. Okay, so it wasn't Schneizel's fault that he hadn't seen anything, and he knew for certain that he wasn't lying, but he'd been hoping for a little more than this…

"Right, never mind that," he said eventually. "I'm going to ask you something else, but before I do, swear on your loyalty to Zero that you won't repeat any of our conversation, or even mention it, to Cornelia."

"I swear," Schneizel replied obediently.

"Good. So, then, Schneizel…" Suzaku lowered his voice a little. "Tell me about Cornelia. Why are you and she so tight-knit all of a sudden, and why is she here?"

"Cornelia and I were at odds because I shot her," Schneizel responded, his voice emotionless and mechanical under the power of Geass that Suzaku was twisting, and so often twisted, to his advantage. "But around a year ago she decided that it would be better to be in contact with me again because she had found evidence."

"Evidence of _what_?" Suzaku pressed uneasily – wondering exactly what kind of door he had opened here…

"Well, she knew. For a long time, she was the only one who knew." Schneizel's expression was completely stoic as he reeled off everything he knew in answer to Suzaku's question. "I believe I am one of the only other people she has told so far, but… our half-brother Lelouch was never buried. That is, we buried an empty coffin."

Suzaku could physically feel his blood congealing in his veins – slowing, sticking, almost stopping.

"_What_…?" he whispered, barely able to believe what he'd heard, as though he thought that he had only imagined such ludicrous words to come out of Schneizel's mouth. "H-how is…? Did she tell you that…?"

Schneizel nodded.

"She was the last person to go to the coffin before the funeral. She hadn't gone to see him before then because she couldn't forgive him for being the cause of Euphemia's death – but she said that, at last, she had gone, even though it was after the lid had been put on. But when she opened it… it was completely empty. He was gone."

Suzaku shook his head incredulously, nausea beginning to well up in him, crushing him with Schneizel's every word.

"But that… why… why didn't she tell anyone? I… that means… someone took his body—"

"No," Schneizel interrupted. "It means that he's not dead."

Suzaku's hands clenched into fists.

"Don't be ridiculous," he hissed. "How could he have lived? _I'm_ the one who killed him. There's _no way_ he could have survived, trust me."

"Cornelia—"

"Cornelia is _wrong_!" Suzaku yelled, cutting him off; tears beginning to well in his eyes, though hidden from Schneizel by the mask of the man who had killed Lelouch. "Lelouch is dead – and she had _no right_ to keep quiet about the fact that he wasn't in that coffin! How do you think his sister would feel if she knew that?!"

Schneizel barely reacted.

"I don't know why she didn't tell anyone," he responded. "But she believed him to be still living, and so embarked upon a hunt for him."

"Is that what Cornelia's been doing for three years?!" Suzaku burst out, part-shocked and part-furious. "Looking for him?!"

Schneizel nodded.

"I don't believe this," Suzaku murmured, more to himself; he glanced at Schneizel again, who was patiently awaiting his next question. "What does this have to do with you, anyway?"

"She thought that he might be stupid enough to come back to Japan for his sister, so she told me to be vigilant, and to inform her immediately if I saw any evidence of him."

Suzaku shook his head.

"This is complete madness, Schneizel… _You_ surely don't believe that Lelouch is alive, do you?"

"I do now."

"What… what do you mean?" Suzaku demanded; he grabbed hold of Schneizel by his collar. "A whole year, and… why would you suddenly start taking her seriously?"

"Because," Schneizel replied levelly, "she found him."

Suzaku let go of him, stunned into silence; withdrawing away from him completely, battling to keep even his breathing calm.

"She… found him… _alive_?" he repeated, but adding that final word of his own and stressing it.

Schneizel nodded.

"That's what she said."

"Where?" Suzaku snapped.

"Kaminejima, I believe."

Suzaku gave a snort of disgust.

"And why would _either_ of them have been at Kaminejima?" he bit out. "Why would Lelouch, if he _is_ still alive, go to Kaminejima – and why would Cornelia, who never comes to Japan, conveniently _also_ be at Kaminejima?"

"Cornelia _does_ come to Japan," Schneizel corrected him mildly. "She comes here often. She travels all over the world, looking for him. They aren't public visits – she is still very much involved with the Britannian military."

"E-even so, Kaminejima—"

"I didn't pursue the matter."

"…Was he with C.C.?"

"No, I believe he was by himself. C.C. was not captured with him, at any rate."

"Why was Cornelia hunting him so obsessively? Because of Euphy?"

"Partly. I doubt she will ever forgive him. But it was also to protect people."

"_Protect_ people?" Suzaku repeated sharply. "From _what_?"

"From Lelouch." Schneizel's Geass-glazed eyes regarded Suzaku curiously. "You ask me that as his assassin? You, who took action against him, should know better than anyone how dangerous he was. He was a monster."

"_No_, he…" Suzaku trailed off, knowing that there was no point; it was exactly as Nunnally had said. Only they (and C.C., as _he_ knew) recognised that what he had done had been only a way of tricking the world into moving forwards.

The world had fallen into his trap, but remembered him regardless as a demon.

"She can't really think… that he'd be planning to take over the world again," he muttered finally.

"Who would have thought that he was planning to take over the world the first time?" Schneizel asked by way of reply, though his tone was rhetoric.

Suzaku glared at him.

"Searching three years for a boy I killed with the world as my witness?" he said coldly. "How do you know that Cornelia's claim that she's finally found him isn't just an indication that she's gone completely mad?"

"I know he's alive, Lord Zero."

"_How_?"

"I've seen him."

Again, Schneizel's words completely short-circuited him; he felt as though the older man had simply reached out, plunged his hand into his throat and ripped out his voice box, rendering him shocked and silent.

"Lord Zero?" Schneizel asked mechanically.

"And when exactly were you planning on sharing that kind of information?" Suzaku forced out, his voice quivering with anger.

"With who?"

"With me!" Suzaku exploded. "With _Nunnally_, for god's sake!"

"It's highly-classified information," Schneizel responded; the irony of his casual tone lost on him, given that he had no choice but to reel off everything he knew but wasn't supposed to tell to Suzaku when he was dressed as Zero.

"I completely understand why she wouldn't to broadcast it," Suzaku snapped in reply, "but don't you think that him being alive is something that I, and especially his own sister, have a right to know about?"

"It's highly-classified information," Schneizel said again. "I was told not to tell anyone."

"Aside from me, are you and Cornelia the only ones who know?"

"No. There is one other person."

"Guilford?"

Schneizel shook his head.

"No. The other person is the one who has custody of him at the moment."

"And that would be…?" Suzaku prompted dangerously, getting very tired of Schneizel's long-way-around method of answering him.

"Earl Lloyd Asplund."

Lloyd. _Lloyd again_. The pieces were beginning to slide together, much to his horror…

"Why does Lloyd have him?" Suzaku questioned, determined to get every scrap of information from Schneizel that he possibly could. "If Cornelia was so desperate to find Lelouch that she spent three years of her life hunting for him, why would she hand him over to Lloyd?"

Schneizel shrugged.

"I expect it was enough that she had found him. I do not see what use she would have for him."

"So she gave him to Lloyd?"

"Yes."

"Is that where you saw him?"

"No, I saw him after she captured him."

"How long ago did she catch him?"

"Around two weeks ago. He was transferred to Lloyd Asplund's custody the following day."

"So she didn't come over here with Gino and Anya?"

Schneizel shook his head again.

"No, she has been in Japan for almost three weeks now. She expressed in interest in seeing Lloyd's demonstration, so I told Nunnally she would be coming, and Nunnally extended an invitation to stay here."

"…Which gives the appearance that she only just got here," Suzaku muttered. "Still, why give him to Lloyd, of all people?"

"Experimentation purposes, I expect. As far as I know, that is precisely why my half-brother Clovis had C.C. captured several years ago."

It made sense. It all made sense.

"Alright," Suzaku sighed wearily; he could think of nothing else to grill him about, and wanted to be alone with his thoughts. "Thankyou, Schneizel. You can go. And don't mention this to Cornelia… or Nunnally. Especially Nunnally. I'll tell her myself."

"Very well, Lord Zero." Schneizel bowed again to him and left the underground chamber without another word.

He waited another few moments, ensuring that he was perfectly alone; and then went to sit beside the still pool, taking off his mask as he sank down next to it. His reflection wavered ever so slightly, pallid, wearing yet another mask of perfect bewilderment.

Schneizel wasn't lying. As it was beyond Suzaku's ability to die, it was beyond Schneizel's to do anything but bend over backwards for anyone wearing Zero's mask. So that meant that Schneizel really had seen Lelouch – or, at least, someone who both he and Cornelia _thought_ was Lelouch.

A part of him didn't want to believe that Lelouch was still alive – that he _had_ been alive for three years, and had let Nunnally and Suzaku himself mourn over an empty grave whilst he hid his existence from them both. He didn't want to think that Lelouch could have inflicted that kind of pain on his sister and best friend when there was no need for it – in that respect, he'd have preferred for him to be dead, as he had spent three years believing.

And _he_ had been his murderer. He had always been skilled with a sword, learning how to use one from a very young age. He had plunged it into Lelouch in a place certain to kill him, because that was what Lelouch had wanted. Suzaku could have botched it if _he_ had wanted – struck him a non-fatal place, and he might have recovered.

But Lelouch had wanted him to kill him, so he had.

So he didn't see how Lelouch _could_ still be alive—

But then Schneizel had given him the answer. Clovis had captured C.C., wanting to experiment on her, presumably because she was immortal.

Because she had a Code.

C.C. had wanted to die. That was why she had entered into contracts with people – in the hopes of eventually being able to push her Code onto one of them, giving her back her mortality. Lelouch had been but one of her bargain chips, making him an eligible candidate for taking her Code.

Was it possible… that Lelouch had taken C.C.'s Code before the culmination of the Zero Requiem? Because if that was the case… then it was true that Suzaku had indeed killed him.

He just hadn't stayed dead.

Which, if nothing else, explained both his coffin being empty and C.C.'s absence at his funeral. He had probably recovered from that fatal wound and left with her before the procession had even begun.

Whilst Nunnally had clutched Suzaku's hand and sobbed.

Indeed, he might have thought that he was jumping too quickly to conclusions, but Lelouch having a Code pulled everything together. After being caught by Cornelia, he had been handed over to Lloyd, who no doubt had begun experimenting on him the moment he got his mitts on him. Whilst Lelouch had been Emperor, Lloyd had said rather loudly that he wanted to experiment with Lelouch's Geass (only to have Jeremiah tell him to back off sharpish) – and while Suzaku presumed that, now having a Code, Lelouch in fact no longer _had_ his Geass, there was no way Lloyd would turn him down as a test subject. His being immortal surely only made him a _better_ specimen to experiment on, since there was no danger of him dying.

Suzaku gave a little shudder. Lloyd wasn't exactly made of moral fibre, seeing humans as only parts for him to play around with. God only knew what things he would do to someone who couldn't die _no matter_ what things he did to them—

And Suzaku presumed one of those things involved the Jupiter System Prototype.

Well, either that, or Lloyd _did_ have Geass after all, and had been given it by Lelouch.

And Geass brought him back to Anya.

Suzaku gave a heavy sigh and lay down on his side, looking out across the still water at the candle floating stoically, bright in the centre of the pool like a little lighthouse.

It was white and burned alone.

Euphemia's had gone out—

But Lelouch's hadn't.

* * *

"_I'm not jealous, you know," C.C. said._

"_Do you really think I would care either way?"_

_She gave a sigh, examining her slice of pizza with a great amount of interest._

"_Well, I might have been, once," she murmured. "Love, jealousy… They're such funny things."_

"_You must be bored, C.C., if you're going to preach to me."_

"_As if I'd waste my time."_

_Lelouch glanced at her in complete disinterest._

"_Then why bring it up?" he asked._

_She watched him, observing that dainty way he had of biting the point off his slice of pizza._

"_Well, when you get to my age, you'll be as despondent about both of those things, too," she said finally. "And you won't take growing old for granted, either."_

"_Is that your way of warning me?"_

"_No. It's too late for that, really, isn't it?"_

"_Very much so, I think."_

"_Well, I'm not jealous that you love someone else. If you loved me, I wouldn't know what to do with it. Love doesn't mean anything to me anymore."_

"_Because of your Geass?"_

"_Perhaps." C.C. shrugged. "Their love for me was merely fabricated, completely fake, after all. But even if I had never had such a power and had simply been granted immortality, I would still have grown tired of it. Because it doesn't last. People and poetry say that it does, that love lasts forever, but I have only memories of people who claimed to love me. They grew old and died, and if they no longer exist, neither does their love."_

"_Ah, but it wasn't their fault that you were an immortal witch."_

_She shrugged._

"_It had nothing to do with me," she said. "I didn't reciprocate."_

"_Never once?"_

"_Perhaps once or twice, when I was actually the age I looked." She smirked. "But you forget, Lelouch – I'm an old woman, really. A very, very old woman. I don't care for love anymore, because I know it makes no difference. The myth has completely lost its romance, you could say."_

"_Yes, yes, a witch in every sense of the word," Lelouch mused, finishing his pizza. "An old hag who bewitches princes."_

"_Oh, you'd make a lovely frog," C.C. responded expressionlessly. "A squashed one, especially."_

"_You're the one who said you were an old woman, not me."_

"_But you're the same as me now – or will be, one day. You're twenty-one now, but your body is still eighteen. When you're fifty, and have the wisdom of a fifty year old, you'll still look eighteen. When you're one hundred years old, and have outlived the average human lifespan, you'll __**still**__ be stuck in the body of an eighteen year old boy. And for those hundred years, you might enjoy it. It might be a novelty, to have the knowledge of an elderly man but yet have the body of barely an adult. But when a century becomes two, three, four… When you've lived for five hundred years and still see a face that has never changed when you look in the mirror, you will know despair."_

"_I don't know why you're gloating," Lelouch snapped in reply. "The reason I'm like this is because I made a promise to you – and I'm the only one who kept that promise."_

_She smirked._

"_Now that isn't true, is it? Not entirely, anyway."_

"_Regardless, what right do you have to mock me?"_

"_I'm not." She shook her head. "Lelouch, I'm not. You know that I, of all people, would never mock you for such a curse. I'm just telling you about __**my**__ experience of it—"_

"_Well, maybe I don't want to hear it." He got up and stalked away, going to the window._

"_Are you afraid?" C.C. asked softly, rising herself._

"_Afraid of what?" he bit out, sitting on the windowsill and, at least, giving the impression of looking out._

"_Being alone."_

"_No. Besides, I don't believe that. You said that Geass isolates its users and makes them feel alone, but that's not true." He looked at her. "After all, you and I are still together."_

"_But I won't be here forever," C.C. replied quietly. "…Not anymore."_

"_Do you think I don't know that, C.C.?" Lelouch asked sharply, glaring at her._

"_I'm only telling you because you need to be strong," she went on, ignoring his question. "Watching people around you grow older as you stay exactly the same, knowing that they'll get further and further out of your reach and eventually leave you behind… Learn not to love or it will break you."_

"_And is that what happened to you?" he asked icily, leaning back to observe her upside-down._

_His fringe fell away from his face and she looked at his exposed forehead for a long moment._

"_Maybe," she said finally._

_He gave a snort and straightened again, turning away from her back towards the glass._

"_A useless answer, as always," he muttered._

_She came over to him and wrapped her arms around him; her chin resting on his shoulder and her breasts pressing up against his back. In the pale reflection of the window, overlooking the narrow, misty street, she saw him roll his eyes irritably at her contact._

"_It's alright," she said dryly, reaching up and pulling at one of his cheeks. "I know you're gay."_

_He squirmed out of her grip in annoyance._

"_Stop it," he said coldly._

"_What's the matter? You still love him, don't you? It's only been three years."_

_He didn't reply. She sighed, perhaps in a slightly-exaggerated fashion, and turned away, her hands clasped behind her back._

"_Don't you anymore?" she murmured. "You can tell me. I already said that I'm not jealous. And I suppose, even if we __**are**__ accomplices, you knew him first…"_

_He still said nothing._

"_Lelouch?" C.C. looked at him over her shoulder._

"_Of course I still love him," Lelouch said absently, his forehead, marked with the Geass insignia he had so long seen on C.C.'s, pressed against the frosty glass. "That's precisely why I never want to see him again."_

* * *

Harsh words indeed. But maybe he has a point – after all, the last time he saw Suzaku, he ended up with a sword through him. O.o A perfect 'Dear Sister' moment right there…

So! It's all beginning to come together! But there are still a lot of questions to be answered, ne?

Like "Where's my damn SuzaxLulu?!".

It's coming, it's coming. Gotta get them back together first.

I'll see what I can do about that next chapter. :)

Thankyou for reading!

RR xXx

P.S: Oh, and I'm sorry for being mean to Anya! I love her, really – but, if nothing else, her involvement suggests that she's important, hm?


	4. Bring Back The World

Whoo, 50 reviews! Thankyou, everyone – that's a very high number for a SuzakuxLelouch fic which, thus far, hasn't exactly lived up to its SuzakuxLelouch promise…

I assume it's because you have faith in me to yet deliver. :)

Thankyou to: **Poisoned-Inkwell, Vermillion Lies, WynterRavenheart, Bligy, kingdomheartsgurl369, SeraphChronoMage, ricesoup75, Nusku, Arkaham, BakayaroManiac, YaoiOkami, KuroitsukiNoMai, Diana Prince, chibi maakochan, Jane Doe, Aria DC al Fine, PikaNecoMico, setsuko teshiba, Star Jinin, dragonist **and** Patet! **

Thankyou very much also to **AutumnDynasty**, who brutally assaulted this chapter with a Beta Stick.

And so, to the reunion!

The Ghost in the Machine

IV – Bring Back The World

I am the mask you wear—

It's you they hear

- _The Phantom of the Opera_

He couldn't bring Zero into this.

Well, both couldn't and _shouldn't_.

Zero wasn't a person. He was barely even an identity. He was merely a symbol – that was exactly what Lelouch had intended for him to be seen as, merely as mascot of justice, a figurehead for fighting for what's right. Lelouch had proved, during the enforced banishment of all of the members of the Black Knights, that _anyone_ could be Zero, because who it was beneath the mask didn't matter.

Only the mask did.

'Zero' meant 'nothing'. He was nobody.

After taking the throne and moving on to the next stage of his plan, Lelouch hadn't needed Zero anymore – in any sense of the word. There had been no need for Zero's particular brand of faceless justice in the unfair, angry world that Lelouch had been trying to build; slipping from the identity of Zero and into that of Tyrannical Emperor had really been as easy as putting that blue into the back of the wardrobe and instead pulling out white—

Because Lelouch had never _been_ Zero. He had merely operated him like a machine for his own purpose.

And if ever there had been proof that Zero was nothing more than the poster-child for uprising against unfairness, it was his involvement in the Zero Requiem – his appearance out of nowhere and taking silent action against the _other_ symbol Lelouch had made of himself.

Suzaku ran his fingers over the blue velvet of the Britannian-styled uniform he wore every day of his life. Embellished with gold – just as Lelouch's royal robes had been, as had the Lancelot. His gaze moved, settling on the metallic glint of the mask that was his countenance to everyone but Nunnally.

No, this wasn't about Zero. This wasn't about justice or fighting for it or inspiring others to fight for it. This was more personal, this was—

The first thing that had involved Suzaku Kururugi for three years.

So he couldn't go as Zero. He had to go as himself.

(This seemed to be something in need of being settled by the "dead", anyway.)

* * *

It was nearing two-thirty in the morning. Lloyd Asplund wasn't like other people. He didn't need black coffee to keep him awake when he was working. His diagrams and calculations and results were enough to stimulate him, keeping him bent low over his papers, barely blinking, hardly moving, while his mind blazed reels of information and possibilities.

The only thing that brightened up the sea of white sheets littering the metal desk was a pink paper crane.

The sharp, efficient knock at the door of his office did more than disturb him; his eye twitched in irritation as the intrusive sound, punctuating the silence, sank into his buried consciousness like a fishing hook and rudely yanked him back above the surface of his preferred alternate reality. He straightened, pushing up his glasses and turning his gaze impassively towards the door.

The knock came again. It wasn't polite – it was aggressive and demanding. The person on the other side most likely wasn't going to go away any time soon, having seen the light leaking from beneath the door. Lloyd threw down his pen on top of his work and stood, going to the office door and opening it abruptly.

His annoyed interrogative procedure was, however, completely disarmed by the gun he found aimed straight at his chest; he blinked at down at it, then at the soldier – low-rank uniform, armour, mask – wielding it.

Lloyd's mouth twisted into a smile.

"I've been waiting for this," he murmured, his tone almost pleased.

The soldier seemed to hesitate; then tightened his grip on the gun.

"Hand over your test subject," he demanded.

Lloyd only smiled lazily.

"You'll have to specify," he replied.

"If you've been waiting for something like this to happen, that implies that you know precisely which test subject I mean," the soldier countered coldly.

Lloyd gave a small sigh.

"Why don't we discuss this inside?"

"We're fine here."

"Is that right?" Lloyd smirked. "Because I would have thought that you would want me to address you by your real name somewhere a little more private than the corridor."

The soldier paused again – then spun, faster than Lloyd could follow, and swung out his right leg, slamming his heel into the scientist's chest with such force that it knocked him toppling backwards into the office. As Lloyd hit the floor and struggled to right himself, clearly severely winded by the attack, the soldier – still with his gun pointed at him – stepped over the threshold and shut the office door behind him.

"Where are the keys?" he asked icily.

Lloyd, having managed to sit up, went into the pocket of his lab coat and extracted a ring with two silver keys jangling on it, tossing it to his visitor. The soldier deftly caught them, made an assessment based on the lock and then slid the right key into the door, turning it sharply to secure it.

"Now, what was that you were saying?" he asked dangerously, turning back to Lloyd.

Lloyd slowly stood, leaning against his desk for support; but he was grinning.

"I shouldn't be surprised," he said. "I still remember that time you gave me a black eye for making a joke when you weren't in the mood for it – though I admit it _was_ rather soon after Princess Euphemia's untimely death. I thought you might have grown out of your temper tantrums by now, but apparently not."

"I don't know what—"

"Suzaku, please," Lloyd cut in coldly. "Don't insult me."

The soldier paused again; then reached up and pulled off his mask, letting it drop to the office floor at his feet.

"Lucky guess, or have you always known?" he asked icily, still with the gun trained squarely on Lloyd.

"I've always known. You're Zero, right?" Lloyd tilted his head. "I'm not an idiot, you know. But don't worry – I've never mentioned it to anyone."

Suzaku's eyes narrowed.

"How kind of you."

Lloyd shrugged.

"What would I gain from sharing that information? But if you're wondering how I knew… I built the Lancelot Albion. The way the Guren Mk-II penetrated the bodywork of the Lancelot during the blast that supposedly killed you would not have solicited major damage to the cockpit. I had designed and put in countermeasures against that kind of attack. Kallen Kozuki was always your enemy, after all."

"But the Lancelot Albion still never had an Ejection System," Suzaku pointed out. "Even right until the end."

"You complain, but we both know the more of a death-trap that machine was, the more you loved it," Lloyd replied twistedly. "You were always the anomaly of both the Britannian Army and the Knights of the Round – the _freak_, if you will. And it wasn't because you were Japanese."

Suzaku made a little movement with the gun, as though to remind Lloyd that it was very much still there.

"Test subject," he bit out. "Now."

Lloyd dared to laugh a little.

"Again, you'll have to specify," he replied. "I don't know whether you mean the Mars System Prototype or the Jupiter System Prototype or—"

"You know _exactly_ what I mean!" Suzaku interrupted angrily; he gestured with his free hand to the paper crane sitting on the desk. "Who else would I come to rescue?"

"Ah, this is a rescue mission, is it?" Lloyd smiled. "Do you still consider yourself to be his knight?"

"_Hand him over_," Suzaku said in a low voice, not answering his question. "Lloyd, I swear I won't hesitate to kill you. If I can run a sword through my best friend, trust me, I can put a bullet in the back of _your_ skull."

Lloyd's smile faded a little, but his expression was still devoid of real fear.

"I can let you see him," he offered at length, "but I'm afraid I can't hand him over to you. He's the property of this research institution."

"I assure you, that means nothing to me," Suzaku responded coldly; he gestured past Lloyd with the gun. "But please, lead the way."

"Of course." Lloyd started away across the office towards another door at the far end of it, Suzaku tailing him closely with the gun in hand; the scientist opened the door inwards, revealing a descending metal stairway, painted a glossy black.

He glanced back at Suzaku.

"You first," Suzaku said shortly.

"Have you considered the risk you're putting yourself at by doing this?" Lloyd asked flatly.

"Oh, who's going to find out?" Suzaku asked by way of reply, his tone mockingly airy as the apparency of the gun underlined his words.

Lloyd's eyes narrowed a little, but he protested no further and began to descend the stairs, Suzaku two steps behind him.

The staircase led down into a vast, high-ceilinged room with a concrete floor – it looked very much like a lower-budget version of the hangar the Lancelot had been operated from before he had become the Knight of Seven. It was even complete with a Knightmare – he recognised the deep violet and black bodywork of the Jupiter System Prototype as it stood silent and shut-down.

How convenient that it was there at all.

But Lloyd didn't go to the machine; at the foot of the staircase, he took a right and led Suzaku down a small, narrow corridor he might otherwise have completely missed. At the end of it was a single small cell, identical to those favoured by Britannia for the holding of military prisoners, with a transparent, code-operated front in place of bars.

And in it, lying on the floor, his only movements the slow rise and fall of his chest, was either Lelouch or a boy who looked so shockingly like him it was frightening.

Suzaku pushed Lloyd out of the way as they came to the cell; with a meteorite crash-landing in his throat and sticking there, the impact sending shockwaves shuddering throughout the rest of him, every neuron and nerve lighting, the oxygen he breathed making him shiver, his own pulse making him feel weak. The welling tears blurred the edges of his vision, making Lelouch unreal, like the smudged style of a portrait rendered in thick oils that bled into one another. He felt as though his stomach had had the bottom seam of it torn out, the acids seeping down and searing the rest of his insides, so that his legs felt incapable of supporting his weight, beginning to give at the knees as he came to the panel – like glass but stronger – and pressed his hands against it like he was trying to push through it, with even the gun pushed flat against it rather than being aimed at Lloyd.

Lelouch didn't stir; he was lying on his side with his eyes closed, his cheek resting on his left hand and his knees drawn up close to his chest, but despite the fact that he was obviously free to do this, Suzaku could see the cold glint of a silver chain, attached somewhere near his ankle, coiled on the floor of the cell.

Suzaku whirled on Lloyd, who was standing back impassively, and held up the gun again.

"Let him out," he snapped.

"I've already told you," Lloyd began impatiently, "I can't let you—"

Suzaku was an excellent shot; the bullet whizzed past Lloyd's temple so closely that there was a metallic echo that bounced off the frame of his glasses.

"Next time…" Suzaku said softly; he trailed off, letting the gun finish the sentence as he moved it upwards, squaring it up right between Lloyd's eyes – still as cold as ever, but now wide with shock. "Well…?"

Lloyd took a few deep breaths; his eyes narrowed again as he slowly went into one of his pockets and took out a white card with a black strip down the left side of it, which he held out at arm's length. Suzaku snatched it from his fingers, deftly turned it over and swiped it sharply and smoothly through the lock system. The little screen blinked, flashed _Accepted_ in English across it, and then overwrote it:

_Asplund, Lloyd_

_Please Insert Code_

"What's the code?" Suzaku spat, not looking at him, his fingers already hovering over the digits as he held Lloyd at bay with the gun clutched in his other hand.

"Seven-seven-two-four," Lloyd responded balefully.

Suzaku punched it in, glancing at the screen again, daring it to reject it; but it hailed him with _Accepted_ again, and then the clear panel slowly slid back.

He was in the cell as soon as there was enough room between the panel and the doorway for him to get through; Lelouch still hadn't moved at all, having not even noticed all the commotion outside his cell – but he was definitely breathing, either way. Suzaku reached him and slowly knelt next to him – completely disregarding Lloyd, Lelouch's closeness becoming the only thing that mattered.

"Lelouch," he said; he reached out, touching his shoulder, closing his hand around it and feeling his warmth as he gave him a little shake. "Hey, Lelouch, wake up. It's Suzaku."

He shook him harder and Lelouch finally seemed to react to his touch; surfacing from his deep sleep as he stirred and opened his eyes, Suzaku seeing the first flashes of that deep amethyst through the darkness of his eyelashes—

He heard the panel slide back and lock behind him, far faster than it had opened; whipping around and firing the gun far too late. The bullet embedded itself a little way into the material of the panel and stuck there with no cracks around it.

Lloyd smiled at him indulgently on the other side of it.

"I see that his hold over you is as strong as ever," he observed.

More out of blind rage than anything else – because his sensible-trained-soldier side told him that no matter how many bullets he shot into that panel, it wasn't going to do any damage – Suzaku got to his feet and fired at Lloyd again and again, the bullets studding the transparent wall that separated the scientist from him in places that, superimposed over Lloyd on the other side of it, all marked vital organs.

He only lowered it when the trigger started to click uselessly.

He was out of bullets.

Lloyd only laughed softly, put his hands in his pockets and strolled away – leaving him locked in the cell with Lelouch.

Furious at his stupidity, Suzaku threw the useless gun to the floor of the cell, letting it bounce and skid away, spinning to a halt several feet from him. Taking a few deep breaths to calm himself down, he looked back over his shoulder at Lelouch.

He was kneeling up, regarding Suzaku inquisitively; his eyes were still a little glazed over, however, which Suzaku thought odd. Lelouch had never been a particularly heavy sleeper – at least, he had never seen him like this, or found him so hard to wake.

Suzaku looked back at him – his anger fading into complete numbness.

Lelouch was alive, and _had_ been, all this time. There was no doubt in Suzaku's mind that this was the real Lelouch – he knew him, or _had_ known him, at least, better than anyone, even Nunnally. His best friend, his worst enemy, his greatest ally, his prince and his lover—

It was him. Suzaku somehow… just _knew_.

Now that he was upright, Suzaku could see him much better. He hadn't changed at all – didn't seem to have even aged. When Suzaku looked in the mirror, he saw a twenty-one year old, but although Lelouch was in fact several months older than him (his birthday having been the December before Suzaku's in the following July), he was clearly still eighteen. His outfit was entirely black – it looked very much like the Britannian prisoner's uniform C.C. had seemed to like wearing, but three years had apparently refined the design. It was actually in two pieces, with a belt at the waist of the jacket, which made Suzaku think of the Ashford Academy school uniform, with a smaller one, looking almost like collars, at each of his upper arms, presumably to buckle his arms behind his back if the need arose. There was a third black collar around the wide, loose neck of the jacket, the buckle resting against his collarbone. The sleeves and legs of the trousers from the knees downwards were very wide and long, falling past his hands and feet – and around the circumference of all four cuffs were six leather loops. Hanging from a metal clasp on the right sleeve cuff and left leg cuff were two long lengths of chain, one of which Suzaku had already spotted – he assumed that these replaced the restraining-straps that had adorned the older prisoner outfits, and suspected that the chains were probably fed through the leather loops to bind the wrists and ankles securely.

Lloyd apparently wasn't bothered about that, though – Lelouch looked as though he was completely free to move around as he pleased. Still, Lelouch had always been rather underwhelming physically; even if he kicked Lloyd and bolted, he probably wouldn't be able to outrun him for long. And that outfit looked heavy and difficult to run in, anyway.

Which wasn't altogether brilliant news, not when Suzaku was planning to escape with him…

He sank to his knees opposite him, perhaps the first real smile in three years gracing his face; he wiped away the wetness forming at the corner of his eyes on the heel of his hand.

"Hello, Lelouch," he greeted him softly. "It's been a while, hasn't it?"

Lelouch didn't say anything; only blinked once, slowly, and then tilted his head a little bit.

Suzaku faltered, his smile dying. He didn't doubt for even a second that the boy before him really _was_ Lelouch, for he knew his eyes and the slightest nuances in his body language too well, but then… why was he behaving like this? So indifferent, almost as though…

…he didn't know him.

"Lelouch," he started again, his voice growing more desperate. "It's me, Suzaku – your best friend, remember? It's only been three years, you can't have forgotten me already…!"

Lelouch still barely reacted, his violet eyes curious but cloudy; he shifted a little when Suzaku closed in on him but didn't try to move away.

The thing was, Suzaku knew that veil on his expression, the powdered dullness that overhung his eyes like heavy storm clouds; he hesitated, then reached out and took Lelouch's wrist, upturning it and pushing back the heavy black sleeve to examine his forearm.

The puncture mark was almost healed, but to someone who knew what it looked like, it was still enough of a tattle-tale.

Refrain. Most likely to keep him calm and drowsy enough to not struggle or try to run away – so that he'd be more of a willing participant in Lloyd's experiments. Suzaku was disgusted, but not surprised: it had been a common method a couple of years ago, and things probably hadn't changed in Britannia itself.

It didn't entirely explain Lelouch's odd behaviour, but it was a start.

A sudden crimson gleam, which he caught at the corner of his eye, made him lift his head. He found himself looking up at Lelouch, following the ruby-like glint upwards to his forehead. It was mostly covered by his fringe, but the way some of the fine strands had parted allowed Suzaku to see a fraction of…

He let go of Lelouch's arm and slowly moved it upwards to his forehead, giving him the chance to pull back if he wanted. But Lelouch didn't move, allowing Suzaku to rake his fingers gently into his fringe and push it upwards, baring his forehead and the blazing bird-like insignia he wore across it like a tattoo.

It was what he had been expecting, but Suzaku didn't know quite how he felt at that moment. He had seen this on C.C. and on Charles, and maybe it was only because he'd known Lelouch – and every inch of his body – for so long, but it looked so _wrong_ on him.

"Why didn't you tell me…?" Suzaku whispered, his voice cracking a little.

Lelouch said nothing.

Suzaku bit at his bottom lip, then slid his thumb down, brushing gently across the glowing Geass symbol—

Lelouch completely seized up beneath his touch, his eyes widening and his hands suddenly lashing out and grabbing blindly at Suzaku.

"Lelouch—" Suzaku started; but his words were cut off at the contact, his own eyes widening unseeingly as a blinding shockwave shuddered through him, radiating from his physical connection with Lelouch. Everything in his field of vision, Lelouch included, bubbled and faded like an old film reel catching fire; every nerve ending, panicking at the sudden plunge into nothingness, told him that he was falling, even though he knew – really – that he couldn't be. He struggled to breathe in the blackness, feeling that he must be drowning in it—

_Lelouch_. Was he trying to _kill_ him…?

No. He understood. Even though he couldn't feel Lelouch anymore, he was aware of him still, knew that he was still clutching at him…

And then the suspension of whatever enclosed consciousness Lelouch had cast him into broke; he was stirred back into reality, feeling Lelouch struggling to wrench himself out of his grip, and in those final few moments, his vision – inward; the eye of his mind – was clouded over by images, compressed into one another like pictures in a crude flipbook, some of which he recognised: (_Kururugi Shrine, Ashford Academy, Nunnally, Kallen, Shirley, Rolo, C.C., Suzaku himself – so many of himself, in his school uniform and pilot suit and Knight of Zero attire and as Zero himself, swinging back that sword—_)

"_Get out_!"

Lelouch's voice – but he couldn't be sure if Lelouch had actually screeched it at him, or if it was a cry existing only in the tenuous bridge between their minds. Either way, it anchored him fully back into the realism of the tiny cell – the scenery of which filtered in layers back to fullness.

Suzaku gasped for breath, raising his jade eyes towards Lelouch, who had pulled back from him completely and was on his hands and knees, head bowed, shaking a little.

"_Lelouch_," Suzaku breathed again, reaching out towards him.

But Lelouch skittered back from him, falling backwards into a sitting position and drawing up his knees protectively, his expression now far more guarded.

The Geass symbol had stopped glowing, and when Lelouch moved his head again, his fringe fell completely across it, obscuring it from Suzaku's view.

At a loss, Suzaku let his hand drop again, simply gazing at Lelouch helplessly; this wasn't exactly the reunion he'd been expecting, to say the least. He hadn't been prepared for this kind of hostile behaviour, such as that displayed by a prisoner towards someone new whom he fully expected to attempt to hurt him…

"…You don't recognise me, do you?" he said finally, his voice laced with a quiet tone of dejection.

He didn't fully understand it, because he had seen himself in what he presumed was a fracture of Lelouch's mind, now capable of casting itself outwards and encompassing others, as C.C. had been able to.

C.C., she… Lelouch had told him once, in the weeks before the Zero Requiem, that C.C. had locked away her memories after their first encounter with Charles in the World of C – it had been an ability granted to her because of her possession of a Code, as had been the same thing Lelouch had just done, involuntarily pulling Suzaku into his unconsciousness…

So, if he was to presume that Lelouch, now having a Code of his own, also had the ability to seal his memories at will… was that what he had done? Did he know Suzaku only in the state of consciousness he had seen glimpses of, one that he had buried for whatever reason?

It was likely. Maybe Lelouch had just wanted to forget it all – forget everything that he had done, and forget the people he had been forced to leave behind so that he couldn't miss them. Though something about that embittered Suzaku, he also couldn't blame him, if that was the case.

He knew the feeling, after all.

Lelouch still didn't say anything, eying Suzaku warily even through the haze of Refrain; and Suzaku doubted more than ever that Lelouch had actually physically spoken those few moments ago, demanding that he get out of his head. He didn't know why he didn't seem to either be able or want to speak, but he got the impression that he wasn't going to be getting anything out of him.

"It doesn't matter," Suzaku went on, rising again and getting to his feet. "I'm not leaving here without you."

"I'm afraid that you won't be leaving here at all, Suzaku."

Suzaku whirled towards the panel at the sound of the lazy, gleeful voice; Lloyd was back, and although he was still alone, he wasn't unarmed now, carrying what looked like a customised version of one of the basic rifles once given to those of low rank in the Britannian Army.

Suzaku said nothing, but his green eyes narrowed and he stepped a little to the side, placing himself in front of Lelouch.

Lloyd laughed.

"I'd worry about yourself," he said, hitching up his glasses with his free hand. "I could put every bullet in this gun into him and he'd recover." His eyes glinted. "But you know that, right? After all, he doesn't seem all that worse for wear regarding your very public murder of him."

"_Shut up_," Suzaku hissed. "You don't know—"

"What I'm talking about," Lloyd finished flatly. "You're probably right. But honestly, I can't say it's something that particularly interests me either way – except for the irony, of course." Lloyd toyed idly with the rifle, switching hands a few times. "Tell me… what makes you so eager to kill him that you do so in front of a huge crowd, and then so eager to rescue him that you risk revealing the fact that _you're_ not actually dead to break in here and spirit him away?"

Suzaku gave no answer, but Lloyd went on:

"Or is it merely a repayment? I remember that time, years ago, when Lelouch, as Zero, risked his life to save you from being wrongly executed for the murder of Prince Clovis. Another public spectacle, of course—"

"It's more than that!" Suzaku interrupted angrily, barely able to contain himself.

Lloyd smiled, clearly satisfied.

"That's what I've always thought," he murmured wickedly.

Suzaku straightened himself up to his full height, regarding Lloyd frostily.

"Geass," he bit out; he gave a little nod of his head in Lelouch's general direction. "Did he give it to you?"

"Ah, the matter regarding Anya Alstreim," Lloyd deduced, still grinning.

"_Lloyd_!"

"I don't have Geass." Lloyd gave a shrug. "You don't have to believe me if you'd prefer not to, but it's the truth, I'm afraid. I find Geass extremely interesting, but I have no desire to possess the power of it."

"Then…" Suzaku trailed off, looking behind him at Lelouch again. "Have you…?" He returned his gaze to Lloyd. "Does Cornelia have it?"

"None of the three people who have had any contact with Lelouch following his capture have been given Geass by him," Lloyd sighed. "None of us have any interest in getting Geass, but he hasn't offered Cornelia, Schneizel or I a contract anyway." The scientist smirked. "I know you've come here to rescue him from my dastardly clutches, Suzaku, but whatever else I may do to him, there's no way I could force him to give me Geass if he didn't want to enter into a contract with me."

"Then what about Anya?!" Suzaku snapped. "Somebody at that demonstration… _somebody_ cast a Geass command over her!"

Lloyd smiled.

"You remain adamant that it was a _person_…?"

Suzaku faltered, blinking.

"…The Jupiter System Prototype," he murmured in realisation.

Lloyd clapped sarcastically around the rifle.

"If you want to know," he said dryly, "Anya is fine. She came out of her comatose state within a few hours of the incident and Cecile checked her over before she was discharged. She doesn't even remember the system malfunction."

"And the machine…?"

"Well…" Lloyd held up the gun. "That's why I'm here. You'll appreciate my Jupiter, Suzaku. I want to show it to you."

Suzaku gave a snort; though it sounded like a friendly enough gesture, this was Lloyd Asplund. Yes, he'd always given a damn about Suzaku – because Suzaku had been the best Knightmare pilot in the whole of the Britannian Army. Even where he had lacked experience, he had made up for it with raw skill and proficiency. His synchronisation level with the Lancelot had never dipped below ninety-four per cent, and had usually been higher; even on a bad day, he had been the best.

So of course Lloyd had fawned over him in glee, thrilled to have gotten such a good pilot for his precious Lancelot.

…That couldn't be what Lloyd was up to, was it? Was he planning to force Suzaku at gunpoint into the Jupiter System Prototype to see how well he interfaced with it?

"It wasn't a request, by the way," Lloyd said lazily, cutting into his conjectures; he tapped the side of the rifle and took the swipe-card to open the cell from his coat pocket. "Oh, and bring Lelouch," he went on absently, busying himself with the electronic lock.

Suzaku looked at Lelouch again – he was listening, but he couldn't be sure how intently, given the Refrain. Either way, his violet eyes were trained very firmly on Lloyd as he opened the cell.

"What does Lelouch have to do with all this?" Suzaku asked in a low voice. "What the hell have you been _doing_ to him…?"

"Slow," Lloyd mused in reply as the door slid back; he let the rifle drop into his grip properly, squaring it up directly with Suzaku's chest. "But then… intelligence _and_ physical strength is a rare package to come by, correct?"

Suzaku only scowled in reply; Lloyd beckoned impatiently to him.

"Come on, get moving. And don't think that I'm not perfectly aware that you're capable of disarming me – in which case, get what I consider to be too close for comfort and I'll shoot. Do you understand?"

Suzaku still made no verbal answer – instead reaching down towards Lelouch and offering him his hand to help him to his feet. Lelouch regarded it warily for a long moment, then cautiously allowed him to help him up. Suzaku watched him straighten up, as elegant and graceful at his full height as always despite the drug in his system.

The last time Suzaku had seen him stand had been in the moment before he had thrust that sword straight through him.

Lelouch returned his gaze briefly, then took back his hand and drifted away across the small cell towards Lloyd, the chains hanging off his outfit trailing musically across the floor after him. So he _had_ been listening. Suzaku hesitated, not wanting to bend to Lloyd's orders, but knowing that he didn't really have a choice, having unhelpfully shot all of his own bullets into the cell door in frustration.

Lloyd stepped back, his grip on the gun firm, as Suzaku stepped out of the cell – true to his word, even though he was the one holding the weapon, the scientist was keeping his distance, knowing that the basic training in the Britannian Army covered disarming an enemy very thoroughly. Suzaku would have smiled at the irony, but thought that he was hardly in a position to do so – the fact that Lloyd had _remembered_ that Suzaku was capable of getting the gun from him if he made the mistake of getting too close and made it a part of his holding-him-hostage policy wasn't an altogether great start for Team Suzaku.

That, and the fact that he knew that Lloyd really _would_ have no qualms about shooting him. Incidentally, the feeling was mutual – but Suzaku didn't have a gun, so the likelihood wasn't.

"Go through to the Jupiter System Prototype," Lloyd ordered lazily, nodding to Suzaku; he glanced at Lelouch, seeming like he wanted to nudge him with the gun but restraining himself from doing so, knowing that moving the gun away from being aimed at Suzaku for even a second would cost him dearly. "You too, _Your Majesty_."

Lelouch tilted his head at Lloyd, as though he hadn't understood what he'd said; but Suzaku thought he saw something of a smirk flash across his face at the sarcastic term of address.

"How disrespectful you've become, Lloyd," Suzaku murmured.

Lloyd only grinned at him.

"You think so?" He gave a little snort. "Hardly. He's not the Emperor anymore – he's not even a prince. He's just a test subject."

Suzaku felt his insides writhe in mingled anger and disgust at Lloyd's callous tone – prince or not (and immortal or not), Lelouch was still a human being, capable of feeling pain and—

"Move, both of you!" Lloyd snapped, pushing Lelouch into Suzaku to get them walking.

Suzaku righted Lelouch, who had stumbled and lost his balance due to the Refrain, glared at Lloyd one more time, and then turned and slowly began to make his way down the narrow corridor towards the hangar, his hand clamped tightly around Lelouch's slender wrist, pulling him along after him.

Best to hold on to him, in case they were given the opportunity to make a break for it. Suzaku didn't know – he admitted to not having exactly thought this rescue mission out very well before coming here within an hour of Schneizel telling him that Lelouch was still alive and in the custody of Lloyd Asplund, knocking out one of the night officers, taking his uniform and storming Lloyd's office, demanding that he hand over the very boy whose murder _he_ was responsible for.

…And now things weren't going quite as well as he had hoped, and although Lelouch was the objective of his mission, he was also an anchor – he was drugged, wearing that ridiculous outfit that restricted his movement and, to be perfectly frank, slow to begin with.

The hangar was lit with the cheap fluorescent strip-lights Suzaku remembered regarding the Lancelot under for all those years; they had brought out the ugliness of the machine and reduced its splendour in a way that had been, all things considered, rather impressive. It was no different here, with the Jupiter System Prototype's sleek violet colour dulled and tarnished by the harsh lighting, looking nowhere near as majestic as it had at the demonstration.

Perhaps that had something to do with the set-up, too, however. The Jupiter System Prototype stood on the typical two-layered metal platform used for Knightmare maintenance – the lower level for the Knightmare itself to stand on, with a metal flight of steps leading up to the higher level, on which was placed the basic maintenance-mainframe equipment. Like that, it reduced it back to a machine – even the Lancelot had ceased to be quite so much of a knight when Lloyd was tinkering with it like toy.

Still, Suzaku's sharp eyes almost immediately picked out a new feature, seemingly exclusive to this particular maintenance frame: What looked like a chrome coffin, upright and bolted down to the platform directly in front of the Jupiter System Prototype, and connected to the Knightmare via several wires and cords.

Suzaku felt a chill slither down his spine as he looked at it, beginning – to his horror – to understand.

"Suzaku," Lloyd said from behind him as they all came to a stop before the platform, "I'm going to need to restrain you now. Let go of my test subject."

As Suzaku turned slowly to him, eyes burning, Lloyd reached into the pocket of his lab coat and withdrew a pair of the old Britannian Army regulation handcuffs – the lock was electronic and the metal bracelets shocked anyone who struggled too much against them. Lloyd pointed the rifle at him with one hand and dangled the cuffs from the other, giving a small shrug.

Suzaku felt Lelouch attempt to move towards Lloyd but couldn't bear to let go of him, tightening his grip and stopping him.

"Oh, you're not going to make this even _more_ difficult, are you?" Lloyd sighed impatiently. "Suzaku, appreciate the situation you're in – either you do what I say or I kill you. It really is as simple as that."

But still Suzaku clung to Lelouch, pulling him towards himself; turning the immortal boy around and wrapping his arms around him protectively in an almost-embrace.

"I came here to save him from you," he said bitterly. "I know you, Lloyd. God only knows what you've been doing to him – and, of course, there'd be no evidence. Only Cornelia and Schneizel know he's here, and he has a Code, so no matter how much damage you do to him, he heals again without a mark on him."

"He's a pretty perfect test subject," Lloyd agreed carelessly.

"Well, it ends here," Suzaku spat in disgust. "Whatever the hell your experiments involving him are, you're going to have to abort them. I'm not going to let you hurt him anymore."

Lloyd rolled his eyes, Suzaku's love and loyalty towards Lelouch having no effect whatsoever on him.

"If you say so," he replied dryly.

And he shot Suzaku in the shoulder.

He saw the weapon jerk in Lloyd's hand and heard the telltale echo of the gunshot, but even after the bullet sank into his flesh, burying itself in the joint and setting fire to muscle and the fabric of his skin, it didn't really register with him that he'd been shot; the slamming of hot lead into him sent a ricochet throughout the rest of his body, making him buckle backwards, his grip on Lelouch loosening – but it was only when, through vision suddenly shuddering with thick, persistent lines of black, he saw the blood on Lelouch, having splattered onto him, lost against the black of his outfit but starkly visible against the pale, smooth skin of his throat and left side of his face, that the reality of it dawned on him in its fullest, vibrant glory.

He didn't let the scream out, letting it slam against his welded teeth, trapping it in his throat as he stumbled backwards, his left hand crossing his chest to grip at the injury, stained fingers slipping on the wet cloth around the entry wound. He lifted his head as he felt Lelouch being pulled out of his grasp, just in time to see him being shoved effortlessly aside by Lloyd; he backed up again, until he could go no further, the small of his back hitting the bar that ran as a railing around the lower level of the platform.

Lloyd was swifter than he would have previously given him credit for, snapping one of the cuffs around the wrist of Suzaku's injured arm and the other to the railing; not letting it faze him, Suzaku thought to take advantage of Lloyd's proximity, gingerly letting go of his wound in order to get the rifle from him—

But he suddenly found the gun wrenched out of his reach: Lelouch had come behind Lloyd and grabbed hold of it, trying to pull it out of his grip, perhaps to stop him from shooting Suzaku again.

But while Suzaku was glad that Lelouch was trying to help him, he couldn't help but feel a shot of further frustration spike up in him as he watched the immortal boy struggling with Lloyd over the weapon – if only he hadn't pulled it out of Suzaku's reach, he could have disarmed Lloyd and turned the tables again—

It only added insult to injury when Lloyd got the gun back, turned it on Lelouch and shot him straight in the chest with it.

"_Lelouch_!" Suzaku's scream of his name was strangled as he wrenched himself forwards against both the agony of his wounded shoulder and the painful jolt that came from pulling too hard against the cuff; he was watching him fall again, and seeing Euphy mirrored in that motion as well…

Lelouch hit the concrete on his back with a sickening _thud_. He was already dead, but it sounded as though the back of his skull had cracked on impact; Suzaku winced but didn't look away, seeing him spread awkwardly like a dead bird, his black hair like a halo around his head and his thin limbs swamped by the copious amounts of material in that outfit.

The blood was already spreading beneath him.

"For heaven's sake," Lloyd muttered, looking down at him, "I really didn't intend for this to all get so messy…"

"_You killed him_!" Suzaku screeched, turning his gaze on Lloyd; there were tears streaming down his face, partly from the agony he was in and partly from having just seen Lelouch die all over again.

Lloyd gave a snort.

"Really, Suzaku, you appear to be getting rather senile – and you're only twenty-one. I seem to recall you yourself saying, not even five minutes ago, that his having a Code was what enabled me to do what I liked to him without consequence." He smiled and nodded towards Lelouch, beneath whom the pool of blood was beginning to resemble wings, having spread so far. "He'll be alright."

Lloyd's confidence in Lelouch's revival didn't make Suzaku feel any better – in fact, all it said to him was that Lloyd had killed Lelouch _at least_ once before…

"Lloyd, I swear to—" he began in a low, savage voice.

"Save it," Lloyd cut in, turning the rifle back on him, "unless you want me to make you symmetrical."

Suzaku glared at him but shut up, knowing that it wasn't an empty threat (though perhaps it was only the Geass that lingered on him still, forcing him to preserve himself wherever possible); instead only watching in furious silence as Lloyd reached down, grasped hold of the collar hanging loosely around the neck of Lelouch's clothing and dragged him across the floor towards the platform. A smear of blood marked his movement, much the way it had been the path of his descent the day of the Zero Requiem's culmination, finishing where he had fallen next to his little sister.

Only now it finished next to that metal coffin.

Lloyd let him drop lifelessly back to the platform and turned his attention to the coffin-like contraption, the rifle hanging idly in one hand as he began to unlock the metal clamps down the side of the box nearest to Suzaku, at length allowing the lid to swing back like a door.

Suzaku gave a muted gasp of horror.

Ironic, really, that he had quasi-joked with Nunnally about Iron Maidens so recently (not even twenty-four hours ago); because this before him now… He could see the interior of it, both the main body and the inside of the lid, both of which were layered with spikes – but more refined than the crude implements in a traditional Iron Maiden, and apparently more strategically placed, too.

For example, inside the coffin-like box, down the centre, were several spikes lined up exactly with where a human spine would be, were a human to stand in it; and the lid, by contrast, held barbs at the points of the human heart, throat, abdomen and forehead.

Each of the spikes had a wire running from it, crossing over like tree roots all over the interior of the box and piercing through the metal shell, running up to the Jupiter System Prototype, where they were all plugged in.

Lloyd lifted Lelouch up; he looked as though he was beginning to stir, but still hadn't revived, leaving him powerless to even struggle against Lloyd's intentions…

"Lloyd, don't!" Suzaku yelled at him; he was clutching at his bleeding shoulder again, trying not to pull too hard against the cuff restraining him. "Let him go! You can't… you can't do this to him, he's a human being…!"

"Would you still consider him to be human?" Lloyd asked lazily, holding Lelouch upright as he put him into the chrome coffin; and, as if to prove Lloyd's point, the dark-haired boy was definitely beginning to rouse, his eyelashes flickering and his chest beginning a slow ascent into a proper breathing pattern.

"Of course!" Suzaku shouted angrily. "You shot him and it _killed_ him, didn't it?!"

"But he awakens," Lloyd mused, "which means he is, by human standards, abnormal; and thus…" He put his hands against Lelouch's shoulders and gave him a sudden sharp shove backwards, the horrific sound that accompanied it – something suspended between a dull, wet _squish_, like an apple being crushed flat, and a thick _crunch_ – making it perfectly clear that Lloyd had successfully managed to impale Lelouch's spine on the spikes so carefully-placed for such a purpose.

Lelouch's amethyst eyes snapped open, the deep purple of them suddenly more vivacious than they had seemed before, though perhaps only because they contrasted so well against the smatterings of Suzaku's blood staining his face—

But (surprisingly) he didn't make a sound.

He looked at Lloyd, those eyes glimmering feverishly, wide and disorientated; and then looked desperately at Suzaku, who strained towards him, causing the handcuff to spark and fresh blood to spill from his wound.

"…He's perfect for this," Lloyd finished, taking hold of the lid. "Because a normal human couldn't survive this – not even once."

"Lloyd, don't!" Suzaku screeched, tears streaming again as he wrenched fruitlessly at the cuff, trying to get closer but utterly unable to. "Do you think he can't feel pain…?! _Lloyd_!"

Lloyd paid him no heed and slammed the lid of the "Iron Maiden" shut; Suzaku flinched against the sound of its loud clanging, imprinted over and over again in echoes that bounced off the concrete walls of the stark hangar—

Which, nonetheless, wasn't loud enough to completely drown out Lelouch's wail of agony – even when it was encased with him behind that metal. Suzaku felt nausea well in him at the sound of it, the memory of it hanging in the cold, stale air long after his scream had died, but he didn't have the strength to even retch, feeling that his legs might give beneath him at any moment. Instead he could only watch Lloyd in silence as the scientist stepped away from the coffin-like box and crossed the platform towards the metal staircase.

There was blood seeping out from the bottom of the "Iron Maiden". Suzaku was glad – there was so much of it, Lelouch was probably dead again and couldn't feel anything.

But he didn't understand. What was all this? What did Lloyd hope to gain from hooking Lelouch up to the Knightmare in such a horrific, Medieval fashion – particularly if the thing _killed_ him?

"I think you'll find this impressive, Suzaku," Lloyd said airily as he ascended the staircase; he had discarded the rifle over near the Knightmare. "You might even be a little jealous – truthfully, I wish we'd had this kind of technology a couple of years ago. I'd loved to have seen _you_ pilot something like the Jupiter out on the battlefield. And who knows…? Perhaps if we'd had Knightmares like this, if only for the Knights of the Round… well, perhaps the outcome of everything might have been drastically different."

"You… you can't think that the world was better the way it was before!" Suzaku responded incredulously. "All that fighting, and… and it wasn't right for Britannia to take over all those other countries in the first place! Even Euphemia thought that!"

"Oh?" Lloyd glanced down at him briefly. "Perhaps not, but if that's a sentiment you always harboured, then you should never have been in Britannia's army, Suzaku."

"But I didn't agree with the Black Knights' methods, either!" Suzaku snapped.

"Oh, I'd really rather not get into this kind of hypocritical debate with you," Lloyd replied coolly. "A Japanese who swears his loyalty to Britannia, fights against his own people and then, at the last moment, vows his true loyalty to neither Britannia nor Japan, but to their conqueror?" His eyes gleamed. "Because we both know the kind of the pledge that Britannia's knighthood system entails. Loyalty that entwines with your very _life_… Of course, I have no doubt that you were willing to die for him. You essentially _did_, right?"

Lloyd was busying himself with the maintenance equipment now, turning on the system and waiting for it to all boot up properly.

"You're just like him in that respect," he mused, barely addressing Suzaku himself anymore. "You're a ghost in the system – still alive, but dead to the world. As you can imagine, that's part of what makes Lelouch such a wonderful test subject. Well, that and the immortality. Ah, and the Geass too, of course."

"He doesn't _have_ Geass anymore!" Suzaku spat. "He can't have—"

"You think I care about that silly little ability of his?" Lloyd interrupted mockingly. "Surely you understand that a Code is the ultimate _embodiment_ of Geass – he is more connected with it than he ever was before, when he was merely able to order people to do whatever he wanted."

He looked at his screens, gradually filling up with various digits and charts that made sense to no-one but him; Suzaku's attention was arrested by a small panel up in the top right corner of the largest screen, with what looked like a continuous, silent flatline running across it.

But as he looked at it, it began to waver, manipulating itself to a beat that grew and steadied—

He turned his gaze sharply towards the metal coffin, but there was no sound or movement from it.

"How many times have you done this to him?" he asked in a hollow voice.

"I can't remember off the top of my head," Lloyd replied absently. "I have the exact number of experiments thus far recorded in my notes… Ah, he's revived again. Good – we can start…"

"What the hell makes you think I want to see you torture him?!" Suzaku shrieked at him, straining against the cuff again as Lloyd began initiating systems and pulling switches.

"This isn't torture," Lloyd answered emotionlessly. "This is science."

He glanced up at the Jupiter System Prototype as he spoke, and Suzaku followed his gaze; the machine came to life, the eyes gleaming as the cockpit backlight came on and the hangar filling with the sound of its systems igniting its pulse.

(And for a reason he didn't know, Suzaku felt a shudder slice through him as he looked up at it.)

Lloyd turned his attention away from the Knightmare, closing his fingers around a black metal lever and pulling it downwards with a sharp, efficient movement; the largest screen flashed across with English text:

_Prototype System: Jupiter _

_Initiating…_

_Connection:_

Suzaku watched the percentage of the connection capability, whatever that was, rocket upwards through every number from one to one hundred, proudly displaying the ultimate digit on the screen, where it flashed a few times – and as it did so, Suzaku turned his gaze back upon the upright coffin imprisoning Lelouch, the blood still leaking from it reflective beneath the sudden glow of the wires and cords threading from it to the Knightmare.

"What the hell difference does this make?" Suzaku cried furiously. "You didn't shove Gino and Anya in that—"

"Well, Gino and Anya wouldn't have lived," Lloyd cut in smoothly, glancing back at Suzaku with a lazy grin. "Be patient, regardless. You'll see, Suzaku. This isn't like the demonstration."

In the moments that followed, Suzaku gazed, appalled, at the Jupiter System Prototype (understanding that its system was draining Lelouch, using him almost as a heart); and Lloyd went back to his systems, beginning to type something in. Beneath his manipulation the front of the Knightmare's chest panels began to move aside, as they had at the demonstration on both the Jupiter and the Mars, revealing the lit-up but completely-absent cockpit.

Apparently very much aware that Suzaku was gazing at him in disgust, Lloyd simply stepped back away from the system and folded his arms, waiting – and after another few long, highly-strung seconds, punctuated only by the low humming of the wires and computers and the grinding of the Jupiter's machinery—

_It moved._

Suzaku felt himself back up almost involuntarily, handcuff scraping along the railing, his stomach giving a sudden vicious spiral downwards as he watched the monstrous machine move completely autonomously, slowly lifting its right arm. The movements were small and laboured, but nonetheless, the utterly-empty cockpit was proof:

The Jupiter System Prototype was moving by itself.

"Of course, it's a very new technology," Lloyd said gleefully, leaning over the bar on the upper level as he watched the Knightmare himself. "Very much still in development, as you can see. It's only compatible with the Jupiter, too. The Mars, which employs a different, sensory-based system, wouldn't react to it."

"Is… is Lelouch controlling it?" Suzaku asked, torn between awe and horror.

Lloyd shook his head.

"No – he's not piloting it, so he isn't manipulating its movements. It really _is_ moving all by itself."

"Then what—?"

"Lelouch is the _battery_ for it. As Nina said at the demonstration, there's a lot of old research floating around concerning the Knightmares and their conception. I dug it all up and read it, and _some_ of it… was rather interesting indeed. For example… You may know that the Ganymede, Britannia's original prototype Knightmare, was piloted by Marianne the Flash – though you may have heard Lelouch and Nunnally refer to her as their _mother_."

Suzaku glared at him.

"So what?" he bit out.

"So… did you know that Marianne wasn't intended to be the original pilot of the Ganymede?" Lloyd gave a twisted smile. "Do you know who _was_, Suzaku? You'll never guess."

"So then _tell_ me," Suzaku hissed savagely, trying to watch both Lloyd and the Jupiter, which was still moving minimally of its own volition.

Lloyd grinned.

"C.C.," he said simply. "C.C. was supposed to pilot the Ganymede. In fact, in the original research, it was proposed that C.C. would not only pilot the Knightmare, but also act as the power source. However… well, the research doesn't go into any detail, but presumably C.C. pulled out of the experiment. She was replaced by Marianne and the power source replaced by an external battery pack."

"So why couldn't Marianne just be the power source? That's what Anya and Gino—"

"The technology back then was nowhere near refined enough to allow for Knightmares to tap into their pilots. Marianne piloted the Ganymede several years before she had Lelouch – at _least_ twenty-five years ago."

"But what about _C.C_.?!" Suzaku snapped. "You're not making any sense!"

"Ah, but C.C. wasn't like Marianne, was she?" Lloyd murmured delightedly. "Just as Lelouch is not like _you_."

"But immortality surely doesn't—"

"Not the _immortality_!" Lloyd interrupted impatiently. "It's the Code itself! The mind-capacity of Code-holders is incredible – far beyond that of a normal human. So consider the Jupiter System Prototype, which interfaces with the mind of its pilot. It's true that Anya Alstreim, once the Knight of Six, would certainly be a more capable pilot than Lelouch – but as far as the actual power source goes…? It's got nothing to do with intelligence, you see. I know that Lelouch is clever, but the Jupiter doesn't rely on that. It taps into the layers of the mind, and the mind of a Code-holder is… _beyond_ even that."

Suzaku knew that – he'd been pulled into the realm of Lelouch's barely ten minutes ago, and had been dragged into C.C.'s too. But that still didn't…

"Then why don't you just get Lelouch to _pilot_ the thing?!" Suzaku snapped. "Instead of doing… whatever the hell you call _this_!"

"Because I wanted to go further than even _that_," Lloyd replied in a low voice, leaning over the bar even more, like a restless child in the queue for a ride at a themepark. "Let's see… Suzaku, would you ever have considered your piloting of the Lancelot to be a _partnership_?"

Suzaku blinked, taken aback by the question.

"A… partnership?" he repeated.

Lloyd nodded irritably.

"Yes; did you ever feel like it was more than a machine, that it was…?" He trailed off, seemingly struggling to articulate exactly what he meant; but Suzaku's eyes narrowed and he shook his head.

"No," he replied shortly. "I mean, sometimes… I felt like it was a part of me, because I interfaced with it so closely, but… no, it never felt like anything other than a machine. Because it _was_ a machine, Lloyd."

Lloyd smiled grimly at him.

"See, this is my problem," he said, his voice growing a little bitter. "You were the best pilot we had, Suzaku, and _even you_… couldn't break the boundary between pilot and Knightmare. I've always felt that if that line could be broken down—"

"Do you even _understand_ what you're saying?!" Suzaku burst out furiously. "You have _no_ idea what it's like to pilot a Knightmare, Lloyd! If that boundary hadn't been there, if I hadn't known that no matter how closely I sank into that machinery I'd still be able to remove myself from it… I'd have gone _mad_."

"But it's about _efficiency_," Lloyd insisted. "Performance would be enhanced greatly if a pilot had a better relationship with their Knightmare – but I came to realise that the only way that would happen was if the pilot believed that the Knightmare was _more_ than a machine. The truth is… you may have loved that Lancelot, but you would have never sworn yourself to it – not the way you did to both Euphemia and Lelouch."

"Of course not!" Suzaku said in frustration. "Because it was a _machine_!"

Lloyd laughed.

"And _there_," he sighed, "is that flawed thinking in its purest form."

"So you've been creating an autonomous Knightmare?" Suzaku ground out.

"I'm working on it. By wiring the Jupiter's thought-reactive system to Lelouch, who has a Code, the potential of the Knightmare is increased – Lelouch is not controlling the Jupiter with his mind, but rather _sharing_ it with it. Of course, it's not capable of intelligent thought, exactly, but… Lelouch isn't the one making it move. It's doing that by itself. But consider, Suzaku… I know it might be hard for someone like you to get your head around, since you were used to the Lancelot, which was always completely under your control, but… If the Lancelot had been able to move on its own, had been able to evaluate and react to dangerous situations on its own, had been able to _save_ you when you might not have been to react quickly enough to save yourself…" Lloyd tilted his head towards the Jupiter System Prototype. "…Do you think you would have considered it to be more than a "mere machine" then?"

Suzaku could only shake his head incredulously.

"This… this is complete _madness_," he said softly.

"Well," Lloyd said pleasantly, "you're just a ghost anyway, Suzaku Kururugi."

"I assume Cecile knows nothing about this," Suzaku fired at him, ignoring his little snipe.

"None of them do."

"But you can't think you can hide it forever! Geass must be ingraining itself into the Jupiter's system! Anya had an extensive Geass cast over her for years, and connecting to the Knightmare must have triggered a reaction to it."

_And that must be why, under its influence, Anya knew that I'm Zero – because __**Lelouch**__ knows. Or he __**did**__, at any rate…_

Lloyd nodded lazily.

"Yes, it still has a few glitches," he acknowledged.

"_Glitches_?" Suzaku almost laughed. "You can't just—"

But he got no further – the Jupiter System Prototype suddenly slammed its left arm down onto the upper level of the platform, upon which Lloyd was standing; the sound of metal clashing against metal was harsh and deafening, and the rail buckled beneath the Knightmare's vast limb, making the whole upper level shake. Lloyd stumbled backwards against the computer system, looking up at the Jupiter in horror.

"It's attacking…?" Suzaku gasped out, backing as far along the railing as he could.

"No… no, it couldn't, it's not…" Lloyd whirled towards his system. "It couldn't have that kind of power already…"

He reached out towards the keys – but sharply withdrew his hands as all of the screens suddenly went haywire, filling up with line upon line of jumbled numbers and nonsensical symbols.

_Wait_…

Suzaku looked first at the Jupiter System Prototype, which was laboriously raising its arm, presumably to attack again; and then looked at the "Iron Maiden" linked up to it—

He felt a jolt run through him and saw, in the same instant, a faint shape, cast in a glimmering crimson, appear above the metal coffin encasing Lelouch – it looked like…

…the Geass symbol…

Lelouch. He must be using his Code… to hack the Jupiter System Prototype. In which case… the Knightmare wasn't attacking by itself, no longer moving of its own volition, as it had been before: _Lelouch_ was controlling it now, and was attacking Lloyd with it.

Lloyd seemed to realise it in the same instant as Suzaku; he began to furiously wrench out wires and slam down switches, cutting the connection to the Jupiter and shutting it down that way. The machine jerked to a halt, the left arm in clumsy mid-swing towards the platform again. Lloyd turned and crossed the platform, coming hurriedly down the staircase and sprinting towards the coffin, his coat fanning out behind him.

"You're going to take this out on him?" Suzaku yelled from the railing. "You _deserve_ it! He was defending himself!"

Lloyd ignored him, too busy wrenching open the clasps on the metal box and dragging it open. Blood poured more freely onto the floor as the lid swung back, and Suzaku saw that the four spikes on the inside of that lid were all shining slick and crimson.

Lelouch was barely moving, pale and bloody, and presumably still with the other spikes driven into his spine; Lloyd took hold of the collar around the neck of his outfit and hauled on it, pulling him off them. Lelouch barely made a sound, buckling forwards against Lloyd – who grabbed him by his shoulders and pushed him upright again, shaking him angrily.

"You little _bastard_!" the scientist hissed at him. "Why are you doing this now, after all this time? If you could always do that, then why didn't you do it in the first place and kill me straight off?" He grasped a handful of Lelouch's hair, damp with blood, and lifted it, baring his forehead. It, too, was stained with blood, but the Geass symbol still stood out against it, blazing brightly on his pale skin. "Showing off to Suzaku, hmm?"

Lelouch didn't react, limp against Lloyd.

"Let go of him," Suzaku spat across the hangar at him.

Lloyd smirked darkly.

"Gladly," he replied, and he unceremoniously let Lelouch drop to the concrete floor. "You know," he went on, looking lazily at Suzaku, "I think you've outstayed your welcome now, Suzaku. You're just making things difficult now – Lelouch isn't going to behave himself anymore. Not while _you're_ here, anyway. Forgive me, but… I think I'm going to have to get rid of you." He nodded at the wound in Suzaku's shoulder, which he was still clutching. "That's not enough to kill you. I suppose you _might_ eventually bleed to death from it, but at the rate you're losing blood, it would probably take hours… Excuse me – I'll just go and get the gun."

Suzaku felt Lelouch's Geass command beginning to overtake his consciousness as he watched Lloyd turn away and start towards the rifle, numbing the agony in his shoulder as he began to struggle again with the handcuff locking him to the railing. Even though he knew that this was a hopeless situation, the command Lelouch had given him all those years ago reacted with exactly this type of dilemma – when he thought he had no other option but death, he fought harder than ever to stay alive…

But the cuff wouldn't give, sparking and shocking him for his trouble, and Lloyd was getting closer and closer to the rifle he'd abandoned earlier near the Jupiter System Prototype—

And then Lelouch got up. Still swaying, still bleeding, but he was recovering quickly, healing with every second that passed; and he followed Lloyd towards the rifle.

"Lelouch," Lloyd sighed as he retrieved the gun and turned around, "I haven't had to kill you this many times in one day before. This is getting a bit silly…"

Lelouch said nothing; and, before Lloyd could get a proper grip on the gun and shoot him again, he reached and grabbed his wrist—

Lloyd collapsed, losing his grip on the rifle as he fell in a motionless heap at Lelouch's feet. Lelouch bent, picked up the gun and stepped over him, crossing the platform to Suzaku. Suzaku watched him warily, but understood when Lelouch pressed the barrel of the gun against the little circuitbox on the right bracelet of the handcuffs and pulled the trigger. The circuitbox exploded and the cuffs opened, the connection of the lock-system being destroyed.

"Thanks, Lelouch," Suzaku breathed, flexing his aching wrist.

Lelouch still remained silent, but offered Suzaku the rifle; Suzaku took it, cracked open the cylinder and emptied the bullets out onto the floor, where they bounced and clinked in all directions. He threw the empty rifle aside and took hold of Lelouch's wrist.

"Come on, we have to get out of here," he urged, pulling at him.

Lelouch simply gave a small, slow nod and let himself be led; but Suzaku knew they couldn't run. As he'd already evaluated, Lelouch was slow – and to crown it, Suzaku himself was now injured, bleeding quite badly from the bullet still lodged in his shoulder joint.

He glanced across the platform – whatever Lelouch had done to Lloyd, it clearly wasn't a long-term state of affairs, for the scientist was already stirring; desperately he looked upwards at the Jupiter System Prototype, and everything within him told him that it was an idiotic idea, but…

He broke into as fast a run as he could manage, pulling Lelouch behind him as he crossed the platform towards the staircase, bringing them both onto the upper level. Lelouch followed him obediently enough, but when he started towards the machine, he suddenly held back, trying to pull Suzaku back from it.

"Lelouch…!" Suzaku, despite being injured, was still stronger, and he dragged Lelouch to the Jupiter System Prototype even though he was holding back. "Come on, it'll be okay… I'm sure I can pilot it."

He stepped over the bent railing upwards off the platform into the open cockpit of the Knightmare, then turned, getting a good foothold, and lifted Lelouch around his waist up into the cockpit too, setting him into the space between the pilot seat and the wall of the metal cavern. He then set his attention upon getting the Jupiter System Prototype to work, sinking into the seat and running his gaze over the control panel before him. He was aware of Lloyd struggling to his feet on the ground right in front of the Knightmare but calmed himself, not letting it bother him.

Okay, so there was an ignition switch – but he didn't have the key. He ran his fingers distractedly over it as he continued to take in his surroundings. All in all, it seemed quite similar to the upgraded system of the Lancelot Albion, with a lot of the controls in the same place; two new features were the metal box off to his right, clamped shut with the black plastic safety lock, and the silver band, made of a thin, gleaming metal, he found hanging from a hook beneath the control panel's main body.

The Jupiter was "powered", essentially, by thought – and as Gino had connected to the Mars system by those little patches attached to wires, he presumed that this was the connection to the Jupiter system. He hesitated, glancing uneasily at Lelouch – he couldn't read his expression at all.

But Lloyd was on his feet; so he hesitated no longer and slipped the band around his forehead, feeling its coolness against his brow and noticing how it rested snugly at his temples.

Having no key to start the ignition wasn't really a problem; Cecile had taught him how to hotwire the Lancelot in case of emergencies, and although he'd never had to do it, he still remembered her lesson. He put his hand under the control panel, feeling for the safety catch and hoping it was there; his fingers found it and closed around it, pulling it sharply towards himself. The protective metal casing of the interior wiring came loose and he pried it aside quickly, hands moving deftly and confidently as he located the wires he needed and pulled them free, touching their sensitive ends together—

And nothing happened.

Feeling his heart rate begin to pick up, slamming in his chest like an iron bell, Suzaku wiped his hands and tried again; but still nothing, so he pulled out the two if-all-else-fails wires and tried those—

"That's not going to work, Suzaku," Lloyd said from beneath him. "I shut the entire system down – you're sitting in an empty shell."

Suzaku raised his gaze towards him, not even daring to speak; but was distracted by Lelouch suddenly moving towards the opening in the cockpit again, as though making to leave…

"_Lelouch_!" Suzaku grabbed hold of him angrily and pulled him backwards, throwing him against the control panel.

"I want my crane!" Lelouch burst out, struggling to right himself.

Suzaku _stared_ at him.

"You _can_—" he began in shock; but cut himself off with a gasp as the backlight suddenly flicked on and the machinery within the Jupiter System Prototype began to work and everything on the control panel came to life.

The Geass insignia on Lelouch's forehead had flared up at moment he had come into contact with the control panel of the machine; but Suzaku gave it no thought as he reached across, snapped open the little metal box and pulled down the lever inside it, bidding the chest panels to close. As they did so, he pushed the covering for the wiring back into place, pulled Lelouch into a less awkward position (half on Suzaku's lap and half resting against the control panel), ignored the pain in his shoulder and took the controls.

The chest of the Jupiter System Prototype closed completely and the screen that acted as a window for the pilot came to life in its place; he presumed that the text that appeared on the screen should have been in English, but the interference with the system by – he presumed – Lelouch's Code, managing to bring it to life despite Lloyd having completely shut it down, was another jumble of digits, letters and symbols like percentages and ampersands. After a moment they cleared, however, to be replaced by the usual enhanced-quality, real-time image of the scene directly before him:

Lloyd had backed up a little, gazing up his precious Jupiter System Prototype in horror and dismay – although Suzaku was willing to bet that those feelings stemmed only from the fact that the Jupiter was being hacked (again) as opposed to the danger he realised himself to be in.

Suzaku felt the band heating, burning at his temples; he wasn't sure if the system was connecting to him, Lelouch, or both of them, but either way he took the feeling to mean that _he_ was in charge of this machine now, _he_ was piloting it and it was going to do what _he_ damn well wanted it to.

"Well, I'm impressed," Lloyd said eventually, composing himself; he was even smiling again, looking up at the Knightmare with his hands in the pockets of his lab coat. "Truly, Suzaku… you're a wonderful pilot. It can't be denied."

"I'm a better _knight_," Suzaku replied icily.

"Ah, of course." Lloyd smirked. "Well, I did say that I was expecting this. Of course you'd come and rescue him eventually. You're a weak person like that."

"I love someone else, and that makes me weak?" Suzaku spat. "And _you_?"

But Lloyd only laughed.

"That's an interesting question indeed," he said; and he spread out his arms wide. "Do it, then."

Suzaku froze at his words; that invitation… He was on the brink, but… but he couldn't, it was just…

He felt Lelouch move against him, their closeness enhanced by the smallness of the cockpit; he could smell the blood on him, the scent thick, heavy and overpowering, because he was drenched in it, because of Lloyd and how he had tortured him, and he felt the pain burning in his own shoulder still, and he—

He barely realised that he'd done it – maybe because he hadn't meant to, but the Jupiter would have it no other way, controlled not by his actions, but by his very thoughts – and thoughts and actions weren't the same thing; but he was rocked forwards after it was done, panting, his green eyes wide but unseeing.

Lelouch touched him and he raised his head.

"Say something," he said, his voice part-savage and part-pleading. "Anything. I know you can speak – I heard you. _Lelouch_. _Say something_."

But Lelouch was quiet still; Suzaku pushed him away and sat up, lifting the Jupiter's hand – stained and dripping.

_This is why I was always considered such a good pilot, right? Because I was so good at killing…_

He took a deep breath, gave a jerk on the controls and turned the Jupiter, manoeuvring it towards one of the hangar's walls, picking up speed; and the faster it went, the more the band burned, almost blinding him…

The Jupiter System Prototype slammed through the wall, the concrete shattering like porcelain beneath the enhanced armoury of the Knightmare, and they were outside, cutting a clear path. It was easy, falling back into the mechanism of piloting one of these huge machines, as if it hadn't been three years—

"_Live on_!"

He jolted, turning his attention to Lelouch; he hadn't spoken, but he was gazing at Suzaku, and the Geass symbol on his forehead was aflame, bright beneath his hair. It had been his voice, though – and that command, that same command that was the only reason he still lived now…

His vision shuddered and suddenly clouded with red, and he felt that he was being dragged out of his body whilst still being aware of it, knowing that he'd been separated from it; and still with that crimson overlay, thousands of images began to flicker, assaulting even the peripheral of his sight, an endless barrage of faces, some he knew and several more that he didn't – soldiers and civilians and students, and he saw Shirley and Kallen and Villetta and Jeremiah and Charles and Clovis and Schneizel and Cornelia and Euphemia and Nunnally and himself—

All with those red rings around their eyes, sinking beneath the influence of Geass.

Lelouch's Geass.

He could hear the command – _Live on_ – echoing over and over, winding itself around him, threatening to completely crush him; and he thought he could hear himself screaming, and he was aware of his body – removed from him – clutching at his temples, but he couldn't—

"You'd better go back to your body, Suzaku."

He turned – and in the vastness of the sudden white, silent space he found himself submerged in, he saw Lelouch, standing out against the plain backdrop with his black hair and clothing and big violet eyes.

"This is my Code," he went on calmly. "Or a fragment of it, at least. You might even like to call it merely an _imprint_. But you're going to be stuck here if you don't get out."

"Is this what happened to Anya?" Suzaku asked softly.

Lelouch gave a small nod.

"Anyone still under the influence of Geass or who has had an extensive Geass cast over them is dragged in here. You and Anya fall into each of those categories, so my Code essentially… _hacks_ you."

"Lelouch…" Suzaku looked at him desperately. "Did you seal your memories?"

"Yes." Lelouch tilted his head. "Go back now, Suzaku. Don't be afraid." He smiled suddenly. "I'll protect you."

His hair lifted and the Geass symbol blazed—

Suzaku felt his consciousness and body slide back together just as the Jupiter System Prototype shook and slammed and he knew, far too late, that they'd crashed—

But though his shoulder screamed and he tasted blood and his forehead hit something hard enough to almost knock him out, he also felt something give underneath him on impact:

The same thing that was clinging to him as he completely lost consciousness.

* * *

This chapter by numbers:

Number of times Lelouch dies: 3

Number of times Suzaku yells/screeches/shrieks: At least 15

Number of times Lloyd is a bastard: Infinite

That all said, AutumnDynasty will be glad to know that Suzaku no longer emulates a Jane Austen heroine. Har-de-har-har… (Don't ask.)

And at least Suzaku and Lelouch are finally together! Hurrah!

Oh, and if my description of Lelouch's lovely outfit actually sucked and you have no idea what it looks like, I drew a picture. It's on my DeviantART page, to which there is a link on my profile. It has Suzaku on it and everything.

The drawing, that is – not my profile. Or DA page.

:)

Thanks for reading! I really hope you enjoyed this chapter because I actually did work quite hard on it…

RR xXx


	5. Re

Wow, everyone, thankyou for such an overwhelming and enthusiastic response to the last chapter! I'm so glad you all liked it! Of course, a little bit of plot here and there never hurts, right…? ;)

Thankyou to: **Setsuko Teshiba, La Luna Negra, Nusku, BakayaroManiac, Bligy, Rinael, PikaNecoMico, Star Jinin, ChasingCaffeine, Skyaze, SeraphChronoMage, Patet, KuroitsukiNoMai, chibi maakochan, Aria DC al Fine, AutumnDynasty, Myu-dono, Arkaham, WynterRavenHeart, zeppelin13, Aoi F, Narroch, Diana Prince, SakuraCa, Candelabra, showmaster64x, simplecharm, Chronos guardian, Vermillion Lies** and **YaoiOkami**!

I did notice that some people thought that Lloyd last chapter was a little too evil. I guess… it's kind of true – he was portrayed as particularly heartless, especially concerning Lelouch. However, I am of the opinion that Lloyd really couldn't give two hoots about humans in the face of obtaining new data – and that goes for himself, as well. He only agreed to marry Milly because he wanted the Ganymede blueprints (so says Wikipedia, anyway) and told Nina that she would have to sacrifice her soul if she wanted to continue to be a scientist (and proclaimed himself "broken from the beginning"). I figured that Lelouch's ability to revive from death would dehumanise him further to Lloyd – and if he viewed even Suzaku as little more than a component, then it follows that Lelouch, having the inhuman quality of being immortal, would too become a (more robust) plaything to him. And, in the end, Lloyd didn't even really care about himself – he pretty much let Suzaku kill him with the Jupiter System Prototype.

Okay, so I bastardised Lloyd's character a little. But it was for the good of the fic!

And you get SuzaLulu out of it, so nyah.

Oh, and the title of this chapter… I realise that it is the same as the title of the final episode of _R2_ (though, technically, the final episode is called '_Re:_'). It wasn't deliberate. I realised afterwards when I re-watched it with my friend and was like "…Damn it". The reason for this chapter being called "Re" is simply because I couldn't pick which of the words down there beginning with "re…" to use, so I called it _Re_ and just listed them all instead.

(Brownie points if you pick up on the significance of the number of words, though.)

**AutumnDynasty **attacked this chapter down a back-alley, kicked the crap out of it and took its wallet.

She prefers to call it "beta-ing", though.

The Ghost in the Machine

Re

[revive. regenerate. restore. rewrite. reincarnate. rewind. reverse. realise. remember. requiem. Refrain.]

Consciousness returned to him in fragments, splinters of realisation pushing painfully through the walls of his mind. His head screamed when he tried to lift it – but it was either move it or remain with his face pressed against the damp material that smelt so heavily, so overpoweringly, of blood that it made him feel nauseous.

His vision still shuddering, threatening to lose signal, he lifted himself enough to take his weight off Lelouch, who was crumpled beneath him. The blood-soaked pillow Suzaku's cheek had been resting on was, in fact, Lelouch's thin chest—

Which wasn't moving.

Suzaku actually wasn't sure which way up the Jupiter System Prototype was, but gravity pulled him back into the pilot seat after he had sat up. He lay against the back of it, gasping shallowly, taking air into his aching lungs as he pulled off the metal band still around his brow. His shoulder still burned and his forehead throbbed with a rapidly-rising bruise and a dull pain somewhere in his ribcage flashed a warning light and his left wrist ached in protest when he tried to twist it too much, but he knew he was lucky to be alive at all.

If Lelouch hadn't taken the impact, he'd probably have been killed.

He reached for Lelouch and pulled him against himself. The smaller boy was still warm but his body was completely shattered beneath his skin; Suzaku could feel two clean breaks in his spine alone as he wrapped his arms around him, noting that he was completely still and lifeless. It felt like Lelouch's ribcage had been crushed, too, caught between Suzaku and the control panel during the crash. They were injuries Suzaku would almost certainly have sustained himself if Lelouch hadn't taken them for him to save his life.

_But it's all wrong_.

Suzaku held him tightly, something tangible to cling to, as awareness slipped through his fingers again – seeing only the crimson gleam before his eyes slid shut against his will.

_I'm supposed to save you. I'm your knight._

…_Remember?_

* * *

"_Well, I read the rules, and officially…" Lelouch turned back to him, holding the sword by the blade, safely encased within its decorative scabbard. "…There actually only needs to be one witness to make it legitimate."_

_He gestured lazily towards C.C. with his free hand; she was standing against one of the pillars, clutching Cheese-kun and looking thoroughly uninterested._

"_But I—" Suzaku started, glancing back at Lelouch once C.C. averted her gaze from him._

"_You're thinking of when Euphemia knighted you. A big, showy, live-televised affair, wasn't it? All the Britannian nobles got their gladrags on just to come and glare at you because you weren't a Britannian noble."_

"_Euphy—"_

"_Oh, I'm not blaming her." Lelouch smiled a little. "She was one of the only ones who didn't treat you like dirt. But nonetheless, I don't want to do it the way she did. I'd rather keep it private – just between C.C., you and I. Anyway, I haven't officially announced myself as Emperor of Britannia yet—"_

"_And you'd like to have official protection when you do," C.C. interrupted blandly from her post. Her gold eyes gleamed. "Isn't that right?"_

_She'd been mocking him, but Lelouch's smile didn't falter. _

"_Isn't that only sensible?" he replied innocently, not really asking her a question at all._

_C.C. gave a little snort and turned her gaze away again._

"_Well, actually…" Suzaku looked at Lelouch. "I'm… kind of glad you want to do it like this."_

_Lelouch tilted his head._

"_Because there's no need for it to be a big, showy, live-televised affair, right?" He ran his fingertips delicately over the hilt and crossguard of the sword. "You're going to be my knight. It's only between you and I. It has nothing to do with anyone else." _

_Suzaku paused, then nodded._

"_Yes," he replied quietly. _

"_Alright, then." Lelouch gripped the hilt, held the scabbard with his other hand and pulled the glinting blade out. "I'm sure you don't need me to tell you what to do. You've had more practise with this than I have."_

_Suzaku couldn't help but smile a little at the quasi-joke as he sank to one knee before Lelouch. It was thoroughly unspectacular – they were in the throne-room, but it was mostly dark, only the lights up near the throne switched on, and it was completely empty but for the three of them. Both Suzaku and Lelouch were in their black-and-gold Ashford Academy school uniforms and C.C. was in her white Britannian prisoners' garb, leather restraints hanging half-heartedly off it, with an oversized yellow stuffed pizza chain mascot clutched in her slender arms._

_But even if he hadn't yet officially announced it, Lelouch was both the ninety-ninth Emperor of the Holy Empire of Britannia and the eleventh prince. Even if he looked a mere schoolboy, little more than a child, he had more of a right than even Euphemia Li Britannia to appoint himself a knight, and had the authority and power by which to do it._

_And Suzaku himself… Even if he looked just as thoroughly unimportant, he'd been both Euphemia's knight and the Knight of Seven prior to this._

_(And then, of course, there was C.C. – perhaps the most unspectacular and spectacular of all.)_

_Lelouch put the tip of the blade against Suzaku's heart as the Japanese boy bowed his head, then lifted the sword before himself._

"_I, Lelouch Vi Britannia," he said, bringing the blade down gently on each of Suzaku's shoulders, "hereby appoint you, Suzaku Kururugi, as the Knight of Zero."_

_He touched it to Suzaku's curls as he said the last words, then withdrew it and held it flat across both palms, silently bidding his new knight to rise and take it._

_But Suzaku only lifted his head in puzzlement._

"_That… was abrupt," he said eventually. "Uh, I don't mean to… undermine you or anything, Your Majesty, but you're meant to make me swear my loyalty to Britannia as both sword and shield—"_

"_Well, I shouldn't be surprised that someone who has been knighted three times would know how to do the thing properly," Lelouch interrupted dryly, "but I __**did**__ say that I was going to do this my way. Besides… we both know what you've sworn your loyalty to. __**That**__ promise means more to me than some silly archaic tradition."_

"_Your M—"_

"_Take your sword, Lord Kururugi. I tire of holding it, and may decide to drop it on your head."_

_Suzaku bit back another amused smile and rose._

"_Yes, Your Majesty," he said, bowing to Lelouch and taking the blade as he straightened again._

"_Are you done?" C.C. asked cuttingly from across the room; but she didn't wait for an answer, rolling her eyes at the pair of them and swanning away._

_Suzaku heard Lelouch mutter "Witch" to himself as C.C. left the throne-room._

"_You are hard on her," he noted, sheathing the sword again._

_Lelouch snorted._

"_She makes such a suffering pariah of herself at times," he replied coolly. "It's not like she had anything better to do…" He tilted his head at Suzaku. "Well, it's done now. You're my personal knight – and the highest-ranked knight in the whole of Britannia. Isn't it ironic that the Knight of Zero is higher than the Knight of One? They called you an Eleven, but you're beyond numbers now."_

"_That's because you bent the rules."_

"_Don't I always?" _

"…_Is there any way I can answer that without displeasing you, Your Majesty?" Suzaku asked curtly, though it was half-sarcastic._

"_Probably not." Lelouch smirked at him. "Though maybe I'll simply have you thrown in the dungeons for calling me "Your Majesty"."_

"_It's correct."_

"_It sounds like you're mocking me."_

_Suzaku blinked, actually a little taken aback by that._

"_I-I wasn't mocking you—"_

_Lelouch laughed._

"_Either way, you're being disobedient." He stepped lightly past his knight, starting away. "I told you to call me by my name."_

_Then…_

"_Lelouch." Suzaku caught his wrist as he said it, making him turn back._

_Before Lelouch could speak, Suzaku pulled him close and kissed him, the sword pressed between them. Maybe Lelouch had been expecting it, because it didn't seem to take him by surprise – he closed his amethyst eyes and kissed back, his hands coming to Suzaku's face as the brunette slipped his arms around the young emperor's slender waist. _

_Finally, however, Lelouch broke the kiss and leaned against Suzaku, laying his head on his shoulder and letting the rest of his body be supported by the embrace. His left hand slid to Suzaku's elbow but the right remained on his cheek, thumb tracing just under his left eye, jade-green and suddenly a little wet._

"_We both know," Lelouch breathed, more to himself, "what you swore your loyalty to…"_

_Suzaku hesitated._

"_You," he said finally._

_It wasn't right. And it wasn't wrong._

_Lelouch made a sound halfway between a little laugh and a sigh and nuzzled against his knight's shoulder._

"_You're an idiot, Suzaku," he replied._

* * *

When he broke the surface of consciousness a second time, Lelouch was moving, pawing at the control panel. The cockpit backlight had come on again and Suzaku was aware of the screen blinking, but it didn't look like the Jupiter System Prototype was in any fit state to move.

It didn't matter. Escaping in the Jupiter would just attract unwanted attention to them, anyway.

Suzaku braced himself against the pilot seat and pushed out of it, stumbling against the side of the cockpit. The Jupiter must be lying on its side, he realised, which would make escaping from it easy as long as the chest panels weren't too badly damaged.

He gripped the edge of the pilot seat and pulled himself upright, coming level with Lelouch, who was jabbing buttons uselessly. The screen simply said the word 'ERROR' across it, flashing in huge red capitals, casting a downwards crimson glow on Lelouch that was nonetheless still muted by the Geass symbol visible through his fringe – blazing brightly as his Code connected to the Jupiter's broken system.

Suzaku reached across him and pushed the black safety clasp on the little metal box on the dashboard upwards, revealing the lever inside. He pulled it down, praying that the mechanism still worked.

There was an agonisingly-long moment of complete silence, and then the entire machine gave a shudder as a grinding sound started up. The real-time screen vanished and the chest panels slowly and laboriously opened, inch-by-inch revealing the night sky.

Suzaku paused a moment after the chest was completely open, listening intently for the sound of them being surrounded. But there was nothing at all, no orders, no rushing of feet, no clicking of guns. Suzaku breathed a sigh of relief and clambered out of the Jupiter System Prototype, glancing around even as he did so.

There was no sign of life in the surrounding vicinity. They were at the edge of the woodland area surrounding the old Britannian Research Centre – he had no idea what the hell they'd crashed into, but there was some damage to a few of the large pine trees around the fallen Knightmare.

They could walk back from here, however. Even though Japan was no longer divided into separate settlements for those of Japanese birth and those of Britannian, the large mansion occupied by Nunnally in her role as a diplomatic figure in Japan had been built close to the Britannian Army's research lab.

No wonder Cornelia had had to be so sneaky about this whole business with Lelouch – she'd been doing it practically under their noses.

"Come on, Lelouch," Suzaku said, offering the immortal boy his hand. "Let's go."

Lelouch let him help him out of the Jupiter's cockpit, but also didn't protest when Suzaku took his hand away again, clamping it back to his injured shoulder. The bleeding did seem to be slowing, but he had no idea how much blood he'd lost. At this point maybe it was just adrenaline keeping him going…

Either the Refrain was wearing off or Lelouch had simply perked up from dying and reviving three times in less than an hour, but he seemed less dazed now, and as Suzaku led the way down the hill away from the wrecked Knightmare, he followed in silence.

Like a ghost.

—

"Okay, you stay here." Suzaku started to step away from him even as he said it. "It won't be for long. I'll be back as soon as I can to get you, so… just stay here, where you're safe."

Lelouch blinked at up him, then gave a small, thoughtful nod.

"Okay. Good." Suzaku nodded too, though more to himself. "I'll come back soon. I just need to check it's safe…"

Lelouch averted his gaze from him, trailing his long fingers in the water, and Suzaku turned on his heel, ascending the steps and leaving him by himself in the underground chamber. He obviously didn't plan to leave him down there, but he had to be sure that the coast was completely clear so that he could get Lelouch up through the house and into his own chamber without anyone straying across their path. It must have been well past three in the morning – perhaps even four o' clock, by now – but he couldn't take any chances, especially not dressed like this.

Like Lelouch, Cornelia Li Britannia was someone who often didn't play by the rules.

The halls were silent, however, and completely dark. Once he ducked behind one of the ornate archways overhanging a corridor, but the sound that had disturbed him had been only a stray branch brushing against a window at the other end of the hallway. His heart was slamming like a jackhammer in his chest by the time he got to his room, shutting the door as quietly as he was able and sinking against it with a muted sigh of relief.

He knew he didn't have the time to curl up on the floor and rock himself for a while, though – pushing away from the door, he began to tear off the bloody soldier uniform, letting it drop in a scattered trail over the carpet as he crossed the floor towards the wardrobe. He opened it, grabbed the Zero outfit and threw it onto the bed behind him, then rifled around for the First Aid kit he knew was lying around in the bottom of the closet somewhere. On digging it out, he carried it to the bed, rooting through it even as he went and tipping it up to empty out the contents onto the sheets when he got there. He found the long tweezers, gleaming beneath a spilled box of plasters, and sat on the edge of the bed, bracing himself mentally for the pain as he sank the blunt metal ends into the entry wound to get the bullet out.

He couldn't get a grip on it, though – maybe because of the pain it caused or because of the sweat on his palm or because he was trying to do it left-handed or because the bullet was wedged into the joint, but he couldn't get hold of it and eventually he cursed under his breath in Japanese and pulled the bloody tweezers out, throwing them frustratedly onto the carpet and instead simply reaching for a bandage to stem the bleeding for the time being. He'd have to get Schneizel to do it, which was a hassle he could really do without…

He got the bandage on as tightly as he was able and taped it in place – it was agonising, even more so than it had been before, but he ignored it as best he could as he finished undressing and pulled on the blue velvet uniform instead, trying to use his right arm as little as possible to avoid disturbing the wound too much. He threw on the cloak when he was done and reached for the mask, putting it on and sliding back into the anonymity of Zero as he left his room again.

Maybe he simply felt more secure behind the mask, but his venture back down to the chamber went unhitched. As he came back down the staircase, Lelouch – still sitting by the water's edge – glanced up at him again.

His eyes widened and he backed up as Suzaku approached him.

"It's okay," Suzaku reassured him, crouching near him and pulling off the mask. "It's me, see?"

Lelouch hesitated, then rocked forwards again and came closer, regarding the mask warily but reaching out to touch it nonetheless with an odd curiosity. Suzaku laughed a little.

"Hey, _you_ designed it," he murmured.

Lelouch looked up at him – seeming to gaze very hard and deep into his eyes. Eventually, however, he let his own violet eyes wander again, looking across the water at the single white candle still burning valiantly. Suzaku rose again and put the mask back on.

"Come on," he said. "I assume you don't want to stay down here. It's like a dungeon."

Lelouch got up without looking at him and let himself be nudged in the direction of the stairs, not seeming to mind the little pushes Suzaku was giving him. Maybe it was nothing to do with Refrain or memory loss – Suzaku recalled C.C. being quite as lackadaisical as this at times, too, and thought that having a Code perhaps just mellowed you out considerably.

They pretty much _did_ have all the time in the world to waste, after all.

Suzaku wrapped his cloak around Lelouch on the journey back, keeping him as well-hidden as he was able; again, the halls were completely deserted, almost unnervingly-so. Like those old battle simulations he had had to run whilst training to be both a solider and pilot, he expected, almost as a reflex, for something to come springing out at him just when it seemed safe.

There was nothing lurking in wait for them, however – only his imagined spectres haunted them, conjured from shadows, sounds and a mind too long trained to expect the worst.

He pulled off his mask again as he locked the door behind them, bolting them in safely. He unfurled his cloak from Lelouch and let him loose into the large room, watching him glance around with either interest or caution.

It was a nice chamber, high-ceilinged and of plain but classy décor, mostly muted colours and dark wood. The bed was king-sized with blue sheets, at the moment scattered with the contents of the First Aid kit, and it was over against the same wall that accommodated the doorway to the en suite bathroom.

Lelouch went to look at the books neatly arranged on a shelf above the desk as Suzaku put the mask down on his bedside table and slipped the cloak off as well, taking a little of the weight off his damaged shoulder. Dressed in only the blue velvet suit, he found himself suspended once again between identities, as he often was when his world was pared down into the form of Lelouch, be he Vi Britannia or Lamperouge or simply the quiet, ghostly figure which was before him now. He hung precariously in balance between Zero and Suzaku Kururugi, just as he had also found himself at various times on glass between friend and enemy, inferior and equal, knight and lover.

Lelouch didn't look at him, though – more interested in the books, even though most of them were in Japanese.

Suzaku made some tea using the electric kettle and traditional Japanese tea set (an odd combination) that occupied the nightstand, trying to use his left hand as much as possible.

"Here," he said softly, bringing Lelouch one of the little cups. "I don't have anything to eat in here. Are you hungry? I can go and get you something if you are."

Lelouch shook his head, but took the tea and sipped at it. It struck Suzaku as a little odd that he would answer but not speak. And perhaps it was even odder that he acted so warily, as though he thought Suzaku might not be entirely trustworthy even though he had saved him, yet drank tea that he gave him without any thought for the consequence.

Still… it wasn't like it would matter if he'd put poison in it. Sure, Lelouch would die – but he'd revive again, wiser for the lesson. That much was obvious. There wasn't even the slightest trace of any of the horrific injuries that he had suffered these past few hours on him, his pale skin as smooth and flawless as Suzaku remembered it – whilst Suzaku himself had experienced barely a quarter of that kind of damage and felt like he'd been hit broadside by a train.

Although, that said… Suzaku couldn't help but notice that Lelouch looked a bit paler now. Maybe it was just the difference in the lighting, the softer tone of his room a far cry from the harsh yellow glare of the fluorescents back at Lloyd's lab, but then, surely, Lelouch shouldn't look _worse_ now than he had then…

As Suzaku watched him, gratefully drinking his own tea, Lelouch held his cup one-handed and picked up a stray sheet of paper on the desk with the other, holding it out to Suzaku in silence.

Suzaku looked at the paper in puzzlement, then looked up at Lelouch himself, meeting his gaze.

He understood.

He put his own cup down on the desk's surface, took the paper and tore off a strip along the top, making it into a square. Then he began to fold, the method coming easily to him, rehearsed over and over again; his shoulder seared, but the little paper creature took shape beneath the command of his fingers even though they were clumsier than usual.

He held the paper crane up on his palms when he was finished, offering it to Lelouch – who gave a sudden small smile and reached for it.

"Thankyou," he said as he took it.

But he didn't say anything else.

Suzaku went back to his tea, his gaze still trained on Lelouch. It seemed silly to ask him why he wouldn't speak when he had just spoken, that single word prompting the question, but Suzaku couldn't understand why he was silent when he was clearly perfectly capable of using his voice. It was true that Lelouch _had_ often gone quiet, but it was usually because he was either thinking or feeling threatened and uncomfortable – though sometimes he had just liked to drape himself over Suzaku and soundlessly enjoy his company, which was a practice he had picked up during their childhood. Suzaku had often had to meditate as part of his martial arts and kendo training and sometimes Lelouch had sat quietly back-to-back with him (and often Suzaku had felt a sudden shift in his weight and knew that Lelouch had fallen asleep against him).

But _this_… Suzaku didn't know. It was as though Lelouch… couldn't be _bothered_ to talk. Or he was hiding something. Maybe it was just the drug, but…

He seemed to like the crane, though, and contentedly finished his tea now that he had it. Suzaku smiled a little, pleased that he liked such a simple gift, but at a loss for how to further reach out to him.

It wasn't really that the atmosphere between them was _awkward_, it was just… almost kind of… rigid. He had been separated and reunited with Lelouch several times during all the time he'd known him, ranging from a gap of seven years when he was suddenly faced with the little boy he had hated at first before becoming friends with – now seventeen and tall and refined and more beautiful than Suzaku would ever have expected him to be – to that space of a single year filled with loathing and grief (Euphy and Lelouch – it felt like he had lost them both). Lelouch had had no memories then, either, but it wasn't the same as this:

Lelouch might not have remembered that Suzaku had sold him out, but he had remembered who Suzaku _was_.

But what made this worse was that, buried beneath the layers of his Code, Lelouch _did_ know him, that dormant consciousness even surfacing during the Code's hijack of Suzaku's mind to tell him that it would all be okay. And Lelouch had confined his memories to a coffin by his _own_ volition this time, so what it came down to was that, really, Lelouch _did_ remember Suzaku Kururugi—

He just preferred not to.

Lelouch dropped his teacup. It fell from thin fingers that suddenly lost all concept of grip, and although it didn't break on the carpet, it rolled across it before spinning to a slow halt several feet away. Suzaku's gaze followed it almost involuntarily before he glanced back at Lelouch, who had started to shake a little, his purple eyes very wide. He _was_ paler than before – it was obvious now – and there was a faint gloss of sweat on his skin.

"Lelouch…?" Suzaku set down his own cup again and put out his hand towards him – but Lelouch shrank back from him suddenly, his hands going up to his forehead, clawing at his temples and pulling at his fringe even as he still held the crane in his left hand.

He gave a strangled little sigh and sank heavily to his knees, bowing his head and burying his face in splayed hands, the crane finally falling lightly to the carpet. His breathing pattern had become governed by gasps and his shoulders shook, but Suzaku couldn't be sure if he was actually crying – in fact, although that was what it looked like, he doubted very much that Lelouch had suddenly burst into tears.

But wasn't an act, either. Suzaku knew what was wrong with him, and even if he _was_ actually sobbing, it wasn't because he was upset.

The truth was, Suzaku knew what it was like coming down off Refrain because he knew what it was like to be _on_ Refrain. He had taken it twice during the first, darkest year following Lelouch's "death", turning to it in desperation after failing to even be _able_ to kill himself. The first time had been a nice little escape for a while, lying in here on the floor, looking up at the ceiling and being able to remember Lelouch without remembering that he was dead, and the come-down hadn't been so bad, really. It had gradually worn off and he had woken up shivering and, come morning, had thrown up, but that was it. He had decided not to take it again, but not even a month later he had fallen prey to it once more, needing something to cling to in the sea of despair he had found himself consistently, hopelessly adrift in.

It hadn't been so good the second time. He had taken more of it than before, letting it ravage his nervous system and send him spiralling into an oblivion of paranoia and disturbed unrest, and the come-down had been far, far worse, leaving him writhing on the floor thinking he was dying.

To crown it all, though, Nunnally had caught him the second time; coming into his room whilst he was cowering in the corner, muttering wildly to himself in Japanese. In the days that had followed, once he had emerged, battered, from the other side of the horrific come-down, he had never seen her so furious. She had barely said two words to him for over a week, only deigning to look him in the eye when he knelt before her and swore he would never take it again.

And he hadn't touched it since. He had put himself off it by the experience, but he also thought of Nunnally – he knew she worried about him, knew she was aware that often, in private, he didn't handle things as well as he pretended he did. Hell, maybe she just thought he was insane and could thus do without being a drug addict as well…

But maybe he still didn't know what Lelouch was going through. He had only taken Refrain twice, with a gap of several weeks between each hit – Lelouch's veins, on the contrary, were quite likely to be stuffed full of the drug if Lloyd had been using it as a sedative, as Suzaku suspected he had. Back when he'd been in the Britannian Army, Suzaku had often seen cases of prisoners becoming dependant on it, screaming long into the night in the agonies of their systems running low on the thing their captors used to (ironically) keep them quiet.

Suzaku wasn't sure, but he was quite willing to bet that Lelouch was probably, at this point, addicted to Refrain.

He looked down at him in despair, not sure what to do. Lelouch might not want to be touched in this state, but Suzaku wasn't sure what he should do with him, anyway. The come-down had likely been kicking in for a while now, but the true throes of it had only just begun – he'd be suffering for hours and even though he hadn't started screaming yet, Suzaku didn't know how long he'd be hysterical for before he stopped. The only way to quieten him would be to give him more Refrain, but that was surely just taking another step backwards…

Lelouch suddenly raised his head and grabbed up at Suzaku, clinging to the front of his velvet jacket with fingers like bony hooks. Strands of his fringe were sticking to his forehead and his eyes were huge and agonised as he scrabbled at the other boy like a drowning cat. After a moment's hesitation, Suzaku put his hands down towards him – Lelouch took them, wrapping his own fingers tightly around them and swinging his weight on Suzaku's arm for support, making him hiss as he pulled on his wounded shoulder.

Lelouch let go again on hearing the little sound of discomfort, backing up and clawing at his forehead again, raking his fingers through his hair and down over his brow as though trying to draw blood—

"Lelouch, stop it!" Suzaku dropped into a crouch in front of him and grabbed his wrists, pulling his hands away from his face. "You're going to hurt yourself…!"

Lelouch struggled against his grip – he wasn't really strong enough to break it, but his fighting jostled the bullet wound and in the end Suzaku was forced to let him go and simply watch him; Lelouch wrapped his arms around himself and rocked from side to side for a long moment, his eyes squeezed tightly shut, before suddenly opening them again and thrusting his left arm out towards Suzaku, clumsily pulling back the sleeve.

Suzaku slowly shook his head at him.

Lelouch gave a sharp intake of breath, looking at Suzaku as though he'd betrayed him – which, incidentally, was a look that Suzaku couldn't bear to see on his face, because he'd seen it before when he _had_ betrayed him, and—

Lelouch got up, the movement sudden, and darted past Suzaku. God only knew where he thought he was going, but he didn't get far – he tripped over the chain trailing from the cuff of his trouser leg and fell flat on his face in the middle of the room. He curled up on the carpet, Suzaku watching him helplessly, hating to see him suffer like this when he knew he could stop it.

Lelouch may be have been elevated above humanity with his possession of a Code, able to take fatal bullet wounds and having his spine snapped in two with barely a hair being put out of place, but a mere drug dragged him back down beneath the surface of the most wretched dregs of the human condition.

And Suzaku couldn't stand to listen to him scream.

He dug what he had left of the Refrain out from the back of one of his deepest bottom drawers and looked over it. It had a shelf-life of six years, so it would be okay to give it to Lelouch. He wasn't even sure why he still had it, really – he hadn't touched it for two years, but he hadn't been able to bring himself to get rid of it. Certainly it would have been irresponsible of him to tip it down the sink or throw it in the bin, but with a bit of effort he probably _could_ have disposed of it properly.

Taking it had a strange method, too – it was injected into the vein, but was administered using a tool tailored exactly for the taking of Refrain alone, designed more like a hole-punch than a hypodermic needle. Suzaku lifted one of the slim canisters of the drug, glinting ruby in the light, looking – as it always did – like blood, unscrewed the cap and slotted it into the odd implement, puncturing the seal and locking it securely in place.

He crossed the floor to Lelouch, who had buried his face in the crook of his right elbow and sounded like he was hyperventilating, every shallow, gasping breath wracking his entire slim frame as though they were being raked agonisingly through him. Suzaku knelt next to him and touched his back gently to let him know he was there; Lelouch didn't react, limp even as the other boy slid his arm underneath his chest to lift him and turn him over, lying him on his back. Lelouch opened his eyes a little bit, presumably feeling Suzaku taking his left wrist and pushing back his sleeve to get at his forearm.

He wouldn't give him the whole phial. Suzaku decided it as he positioned the needle, pressing it against Lelouch's near-white skin. Probably not even half. Just enough to calm him. Just enough to stop the pain. That was what Refrain was for, right?

To stop the pain?

That was what it meant. Refrain. Desist. _Stop_.

He pushed down the plunger, forcing the drug into Lelouch's system. He knew the violet-eyed boy was watching him and couldn't face returning his gaze, feeling a sense of revulsion towards the poison he was putting into him, not to mention being disgusted at himself for being the one to poison him.

(But maybe it was just Lelouch. He'd always had a sway, a terrible power, over Suzaku. He'd always been able to make him do exactly what he wanted.)

He hadn't expected Lelouch to suddenly lash out at him, though. His palm slammed into Suzaku's right shoulder, reigniting the flaming agony of the bullet wound again and sending it spiralling like a corkscrew down throughout the rest of his arm, making his fingers seize up and let go of the instrument even as he did his best to stifle the scream. He didn't know if it had been on purpose, Lelouch all of a sudden retaliating against Suzaku drugging him, or if he was simply still flailing from being wracked with the agonies of come-down and had hit him by accident, but either way it hurt like holy hell and Suzaku shrank back from him, clutching at his shoulder again and forgetting all about the Refrain.

Lelouch let his arm drop back to the floor again, lying still for a long moment. His breathing was calming down again, and once it had decelerated to a regular, even pattern he sat up, looking around dazedly. Suzaku saw the pale cloudiness in his eyes again and knew he'd sunk back beneath the surface of his deceitful ocean. It wasn't that Suzaku preferred to see him this way, stumbling around under the influence of Refrain, but he was relieved. He was too exhausted to deal with Lelouch's come-down right now and also knew he couldn't afford to have him screaming the place down during the worst of it, especially at four in the morning…

He knew he _would_ have to deal with it eventually – his supply of Refrain would probably only cover another four or five hits and he wasn't going to buy more just to make Lelouch even worse. He considered that if he kept lessening the dosage each time, he could wean him off it. The final come-down would still be hell, but it would be better than the complete cold turkey Suzaku had just saved him from.

Regardless, Lelouch seemed to be content again, and perfectly oblivious of the fact that the reason Suzaku was cowering away from him was because he had hit him; he crawled over to Suzaku and wound his thin arms around him, clutching at him completely like a thread of ivy. He rested his head on the Japanese boy's left shoulder, breathing against his neck.

His warmth was comforting, but his clothing was still damp with blood, both his own and Suzaku's, the stench of it heady and sickening. Suzaku felt the weakness slither over him, winding around him as Lelouch had, and sank to his back on the carpet, bringing the immortal boy down with him. He lay and looked up at the ceiling, his shoulder still badly burning, aware of Lelouch shifting on top of him to get more comfortable and realising that he just didn't understand him at all anymore. Whether it was just the Refrain or because he had a Code or because he'd buried his memories or because he'd died and revived probably more times than could be counted on both hands, Suzaku had no idea, but this boy was barely Lelouch Lamperouge _or_ Lelouch Vi Britannia.

Both in body but neither in mind.

But even though he knew that, knew that the Lelouch he loved was asleep, suffocated beneath his own desire to hide, the tears still welled in his eyes as he gazed blankly at the ceiling of his room.

Three years. Three years thinking he slept only within the grave. Three years of thinking he was gone for good and that he would never see him again. It was a feeling he had known before, from the ages of ten to seventeen, after hearing the official rumours that the Britannian prince and princess who had been in Japan prior to the war had been killed during Britannia's invasion.

Lelouch and Nunnally. He had cried for them because they had been his only friends – because they had been innocents, nothing more than pawns, caught up in the crossfire wrought by their home country. But years had eased the pain and although he had never forgotten them, he had forgotten (almost) that he had ever cried.

Then Lelouch came back, appearing like a ghost before him in that hijacked truck, and the pain started all over again.

And got worse.

Lelouch sat up on him, straddling his stomach, and ran his fingers over him, as though – like his sister – he was seeing with his hands instead of his eyes. He touched Suzaku's curls and trailed his fingertips down over his face, mopping at his wet eyes with his cuff, then came over his throat and curiously investigated the silky white cravat for a moment before moving to unpin it and pull it loose.

_Don't._ Suzaku didn't speak, didn't move, just gazed helplessly up at the ceiling. _Don't, Lelouch. Don't make it worse_.

Lelouch took the cravat away and unbuttoned the blue-and-gold jacket, parting it to reveal the pale lilac waistcoat and white shirt beneath it. Suzaku remained lying completely still, not looking at him, as he slipped loose the buttons on both waistcoat and shirt, too; his eyes slid shut when Lelouch pushed the layers of material back, baring his chest. He found himself torn between wanting him to continue to pull away everything that made him Zero until all that was left was the _other_ boy who was supposed to be dead and wanting to shove him off for attempting to rule realms no-one but the _real_ Lelouch had ever been permitted to conquer before.

But although he acted on neither desire, Lelouch showed no interest in undressing him further, not even particularly concerned with what he had already unearthed from beneath the faceless façade of Zero. Instead his inquisitive hands trailed across Suzaku's collarbone to his right shoulder, touching the bandages wrapped around it. Even though it hurt, worse than before because Lelouch had disturbed it, Suzaku made no protest as he felt Lelouch peel away the tape and loosen the damp gauze – he, too, was evaluating now simply based on touch, narrowing down his world to nothing but pain and the cool gentleness of Lelouch's slender hands.

He hadn't been expecting Lelouch's mouth to enter the equation, frowning on feeling his lips press to the entry wound; he grimaced in discomfort, shifting a little, puzzled and disgusted in equal measure.

"Lelouch," he started quietly, "that hurts—"

It had been _nothing_ compared to the agony that accompanied Lelouch suddenly – what felt like – biting down on the wound, teeth ripping into torn, seared flesh, fresh blood coming in an eruption. Suzaku couldn't stop the scream, only managing to stifle and strangle it after it had cut the air, echoing treacherously even after he had bitten it back.

_You're making it worse—_

Lelouch lifted his head. The bullet was between his teeth.

Jade eyes wide open, Suzaku stared up at him, panting with pain and shock. After a long moment of gazing lazily down at him, Lelouch spat the bullet out onto the floor and wiped his mouth on his sleeve, taking away the crimson stain of Suzaku's blood that had left its imprint on him. He then took up the white cravat and tied it around the bleeding joint, making a crude but effective tourniquet of it to stem the blood flow.

As he regarded his handiwork rather emotionlessly, Suzaku hauled himself into a sitting position. Though the pain was worse, he accepted it – different now that it wasn't radiating from the bullet still nested within the wound, but instead from the path of its violent departure.

Lelouch had made it worse, but he'd also made it better.

Suzaku leaned up towards him. Lelouch didn't react at all, not coming forwards or leaning back away from him. He allowed him to kiss him, nothing more or less. But Suzaku soon drew back, sickened by the taste of blood – his own, salty, coppery, reminding him that they were both dead.

Lelouch merely blinked at him.

"Let's… let's go to bed," Suzaku muttered finally. "Come on…"

He shifted Lelouch off him, staggering to his feet and tugging at Lelouch to do the same, far too exhausted to pull him up. The immortal boy did eventually rise, but wandered away back over towards the desk as Suzaku went to the wardrobe and opened it again, his own clothes still hanging open and off him, flecked with blood. He pulled out the first plain shirt that came to hand and looked about for Lelouch, finding him retrieving his crane. He caught his gaze as he straightened, however, and Suzaku beckoned to him.

Suzaku swept everything off the bed as Lelouch approached slowly, cradling his crane with hands that were still stained with blood; though it wasn't just his hands that were the problem. They both desperately needed a shower, but Lelouch's outfit was worse than Suzaku's had been, quite literally soaked in blood from both his own various injuries and Suzaku's being shot, too.

"You can wear this to sleep in," Suzaku said, indicating to the shirt, which he had draped on the bed. "I'll get the blood out of your clothing tomorrow."

He turned away from him briefly, undressing himself, gingerly shrugging out of the jacket and waistcoat and shirt, already open, and unbuttoning the velvet trousers, leaving him in nothing but his boxer shorts and the cravat acting as a bandage. He rummaged through the scattered contents of the First Aid kit, found some painkillers and knocked a couple back, thinking they probably wouldn't help much but surely couldn't do any harm.

When he looked back at Lelouch, he found that he hadn't moved, still standing in his blood-drenched clothing.

"_Lelouch_…" Frustrated, overwhelmed with pain and exhaustion and a strange sense of sorrow, Suzaku reached towards him and began to undress him himself, loosening the collar at the neck of his outfit and wrenching the buttons, off-centre and to the right of the chest, undone and unbuckling his belt, reaching up again to slide the whole heavy top part of his outfit off over his shoulders—

And he saw it.

Low down on Lelouch's belly, almost tracing the waistband of his trousers, was a second Geass symbol.

Suzaku looked at it, appalled. He didn't know if that was normal or not – for a Code-Holder to have more than one mark on them – and didn't pretend to be an authority on the matter, but with the exposure of this second insignia, something of a _reminder_, he was jarred back into a reality he had been removed from since Lelouch's Code had taken him hostage whilst in the Jupiter System Prototype.

He'd been calm all this time. So strangely, eerily calm, barely giving it a thought, allowing Lelouch and his immortality and his memoryless-but-charming little ways and his addiction to Refrain to completely and utterly distract him, giving the world back its banalities in order for it to serve as a suitable backdrop for welcoming a ghost back into his life…

But he had killed Lloyd Asplund.

Lloyd. He had known him for years. He had been an Earl, but more importantly, he had been the Chief of the Advanced Special Envoy Engineering Corps unit of the Britannian Army. He had created the Lancelot and the Lancelot Albion and upgraded the Guren Mk-II to the extent that it had taken out whole Britannian fleets.

He had loved machines more than anything, and had opened up his arms to the Jupiter System Prototype, piloted by the component known as Suzaku Kururugi, and invited it to murder him.

He had been smiling as it had crushed him. Somehow, oddly it had been exactly what he had wanted. Even if Suzaku himself desired death, he could not understand it – but he still knew that Lloyd had got what he had desired.

His masterpiece, piloted by Britannia's best pilot, and his undoing.

(And he'd predicted it, hadn't he? He'd laughed, and though his hand had been on the Lancelot, he had been looking at its pilot.)

Suzaku sank to his knees and pressed his forehead to the Geass insignia outstretched like an albatross across Lelouch's flat stomach, but no tears came.

He could cry for a prince who hadn't died and for an emperor who had deserved to die and for an immortal boy who _couldn't_ die, but he couldn't cry for a man whose only crime had been to love machines more than life.

Even if he had more in common with him.

* * *

"_Well, that's everything for today." Milly rose and clapped her hands together in satisfaction as she looked around at the rest of the members of the Ashford Academy Student Council. "Of course, we have to start on the arrangements for the Spring Festival, but I haven't had the time to draw up a rota yet. I'll have it done by Thursday's meeting." She glanced slyly at Lelouch, who was next to her. "I'd ask Mr Vice-President to handle it, but I know for a fact that Mr Vice-President would draw up a rota exempting himself from all hard labour."_

"_It's your job anyway, Ms President," Lelouch replied, his tone pleasant but cold._

"_I know," Milly sighed in a faux-morose manner. _

_She sat quiet for a while, winding a strand of blonde hair around her finger, as the rest of the members began to gather their things together and leave, Shirley first out with her swim bag slung over her shoulder._

"_Oh, Suzaku…!"_

_Suzaku, who had been starting away with Lelouch and Rivalz, glanced back at the Student Council President in surprise._

"_Yes, Ms President?"_

"_Can you stay for a moment? I want you to help me with something."_

"_Oh." Suzaku blinked, then nodded. "…Okay."_

"_Something else which I expect is __**her**__ job," Lelouch said cuttingly, folding his arms as he looked at Milly. "Shall I stay too?"_

_Milly grinned at him._

"_No, that won't be necessary. It's hard labour."_

"_I thought it was your policy to give me all the hard labour you came across?" Lelouch scowled. "Hence not letting me do the rota."_

"_Oh, I'll let you off for today. I just need Suzaku. You and Rivalz can go."_

_Lelouch hesitated a moment longer, even opening his mouth a little – presumably to fire off another argument – but eventually he gave a huffy little sigh and turned on his heel, catching up to Rivalz and leaving the room with him._

_Once she was satisfied that the place was completely deserted but for her and Suzaku, Milly went and shut the door, turning to him._

"_Ms President…?" Suzaku asked uncertainly. "What is it you want me to do?"_

"_Oh." Milly averted her gaze from him briefly. "Suzaku, there's no hard labour. I just wanted… to talk to you."_

"_About what?"_

"_About __**him**__, of course." She motioned her head backwards, indicating more towards the fact that Lelouch had gone. "My, is he always so possessive, I wonder…?"_

"_Um, well… sometimes, but…" Suzaku trailed off in confusion. "What about him?"_

_Milly smiled._

"_That's so cute," she murmured. "You know, he behaves very differently with you. It's quite refreshing to see another side of him."_

_Suzaku shook his head a little, but Milly could see the faint beginnings of a blush. _

"_I don't think I—"_

"_Suzaku, I'll let you in on a secret – I'm actually not quite as stupid as I pretend to be. I know you and he are…"_

_The blush darkened, noticeable now, and Milly grinned as she trailed off, letting the silence finish the statement for her._

"_Maybe I'm a little jealous," she said thoughtfully, looking up at the ceiling. "He's cold, but there's no denying that he's a stud. What's he like in bed?"_

"_Ms President!"_

_Milly laughed and flapped her hands at him._

"_Oh, Suzaku, you should know by now you can't take everything I say so seriously," she teased. "Though if you were planning on denying it, it's too late now."_

"_I—"_

"_Oh, as I said, I knew anyway. But don't worry – I won't tell anyone."_

_Suzaku's expression suddenly darkened._

"_So what, then?" he asked quietly. "Are you going to blackmail me into doing stuff for you?"_

_Milly gave a snort._

"_That Lelouch – telling tales on me again, I expect. I'm not that bad." Her own expression sobered up. "To be honest… it's the exact opposite. I'm not trying to get between you, so please don't think I am, but I hope you realise what a dangerous game you're both playing."_

"…_Because I'm an Eleven?"_

"_It's not… it's not that. I mean, you're an Honorary Britannian, anyway. Of course, there will always be people who disapprove, but I expect you know that. It's the same as you both being male. There will be people who won't accept it, and that's all there is to it."_

"_Nobody knows." Suzaku gave an uneasy shrug. "Well, except you."_

"_Suzaku, neither of those things are my issue." Milly gave a small sigh. "Well, if it was to get out, then those things would contribute, but as for me… Of course, you know he's a Britannian prince, and that Nunnally is a princess."_

_Suzaku blinked at her again._

"_How… how do __**you**__ know?" he asked._

"_Lelouch and Nunnally's mother had ties to my family. After the war broke out, my grandfather took charge of them to protect them. Of course, I know you two like to pretend that you've only made friends since you transferred to Ashford Academy, but I know you already knew him – he and Nunnally were under your father's care before Japan was invaded. He was Genbu Kururugi, and you're Suzaku Kururugi. It would be ridiculous to assume that you and Lelouch had never crossed paths before."_

"_But you're only able to deduce that because you know about Lelouch and Nunnally."_

"_That may be so, but you're not hiding your identity, Suzaku. Everyone knows you're the son of Japan's last prime minister. Anyone high up enough to know that Lelouch and Nunnally Vi Britannia were sent to Japan as children to live in the Kururugi household may look at the fact that Genbu Kururugi's son has suddenly gotten very friendly with a Britannian student called Lelouch Lamperouge – a student whose records only go back seven years – and deduce from that Lelouch Vi Britannia isn't actually dead." _

_It appeared that this thought hadn't actually occurred to Suzaku before, for his countenance suddenly grew very worried and he lowered his gaze to the floor of the Student Council Room._

"_I'm surprised at him," Milly went on softly. "He must realise that he's putting himself and Nunnally at risk of being exposed…"_

_Suzaku looked up at her again dejectedly._

"_What should I do, then?" he asked desperately. "I guess... we never should have started it, but even if I broke up with him, I can't avoid him completely. We're still both on the Student Council and in class together and I can't leave Ashford because Princess Euphemia—"_

"_Oh, don't do anything like that." Milly was smiling again. "I expect he __**does**__ know the danger – that's why I said I was surprised at him. And he wouldn't listen to you, anyway."_

"_Then what?"_

"_Be careful, Suzaku." She gave a little shake of her head, her gold hair bouncing on her shoulders. "He's different now – I already said that his behaviour with you is uncharacteristic. Now that he has his claws into you, he's not going to let go without a fight. He can be stubborn like that. So just be careful. That's all you can do."_

_Suzaku opened his mouth, but could say nothing. In the end, Milly laughed again._

"_I don't know why I'm worried," she said. "He has you for a knight, doesn't he? I know you'll protect him, Suzaku."_

_Suzaku gave a silent nod, retrieved his bag and started for the door, not really annoyed or upset with Milly but simply having nothing else to say to her._

"_Lloyd was talking about you," Milly suddenly said from behind him._

_Again, he turned to her, hand on the doorknob, ready to leave._

"_That Lloyd," he responded dryly. "Telling tales on me again, I expect. Do you see much of him?"_

"_Not so much, considering he's my fiancé, but…" Milly shrugged. "I don't mind. I'm busy anyway. But he took me out to dinner last night and he ended up talking about you. I think he admires you a lot. He said you're a very good pilot, probably the best in the entire Britannian Army."_

"_Huh." Suzaku gave a grim little nod. "What else did he say?"_

_Milly shrugged._

"_Oh, this and that. I have to admit, sometimes I don't understand what he's talking about, even when he isn't talking about machines. Sometimes he'll say something and I don't know if he means that it's good or bad."_

"_Oh?" Suzaku almost smiled, knowing the feeling._

"_Mm. Because he said something else about you, and I don't know how he meant it." Milly looked at the Japanese boy across the Student Council Room, her face serious again. "He said you're the best killing machine he's ever seen."_

* * *

Oh my! Drugs, bullets being pulled out with teeth and boys kissing boys! Such scandal! :D

Either way, let's hope that Suzaku does a better job of hiding Lelouch than Lelouch did of hiding C.C. – who, as we all know, was rather prone to taking other peoples' clothes and wandering around on her perpetual Giant Pizza Quest…

That all said, the next chapter is a little bit… different.

You'll like it, though.

:)

Thankyou all for reading!

RR

xXx

(P.S: The first one who figures out the significance of the "albatross" being used as a metaphor for Lelouch's second Geass symbol can have… something. Maybe. O.o)


	6. Inversion: Pt I

Wow, sorry for such a long time since the last update! But we're here now, so… yay!

Thankyou to: **Star Jinin, Rinael, Nusku, Xhadow Kiss, chibi maakochan, Marie, PikaNecoMico, asami-chan37, Patet, Fallen One-Winged Tenshi, ChasingCaffeine, KuroitsukiNoMai, Poisoned-Inkwell, arimi-yume, Kora, JerichoGirl, abls, JLP, LacuStellar, La Luna Negra, Diana Prince, Koruyuha, YaoiOkami, Bligy, SutaakiHitori, Deus3xMachina, COLD TURKEY, realityfling18, teito13, evan elric, MizuiroSnow **and **Neo Diji**!

Thankyou also to **AutumnDynasty**, who kicked this chapter in the ass with her Beta Boots.

Oh, and as for my little "contest"… Um, well, it wasn't really a contest, but a lot of you had a crack at the meaning behind Lelouch's second Geass symbol being referred to as an albatross by use of a simile. While a lot of you were on the mark with suggestions that it represents a wearisome burden and guilt and so forth, only two reviewers, **teito13** and **evan elric**, were bang on. What I was looking for was the source of this belief – _The Rime of the Ancient Mariner_ by Samuel Taylor Coleridge. It is true that it's said to be unlucky to shoot an albatross (because they carry the souls of sailors drowned at sea), but Coleridge's poem actually _created_ that myth. A famous line from the poem alludes to the story of the Wandering Jew in describing the "wearisome burden" of killing the albatross: "Instead of the Cross the Albatross/About my neck was hung".

(Other fun facts about this poem: It is also the source of the phrase "Water, water, everywhere/Nor any drop to drink" (often misquoted as "But not a drop to drink") AND… _Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest_? Pretty much _The Rime of the Ancient Mariner: The Movie_ – or, at least, this second instalment of Disney's _Pirates_ franchise takes quite a lot of inspiration in places from the poem, including the ship full of dead sailors. The lowdown: A great poem!)

Gyah, anyway… Without further ado, I present Chapter 6 of _The Ghost in the Machine_ – the first half of a double-part full-flashback chapter.

Well, I _did_ say it was different.

;)

The Ghost in the Machine

Inversion – Pt I

("Perhaps we never should have started it," he'd said to Milly Ashford.

…So how had it started at all?)

* * *

"_I'll carry Nunnally."_

"_Oh, it's fine—"_

"_You look tired. And we said we'd take it in turns."_

"…_Okay." Lelouch's big violet eyes pierced Suzaku as he approached. "But try not to wake her."_

_Suzaku nodded. Nunnally did stir a little during the switchover between the two of them, but she settled against Suzaku's back moments later, still asleep. The Japanese boy watched Lelouch stretch his own back out; carrying his sister took more out of him than it took out of Suzaku, who was much stronger, but nonetheless Suzaku knew that Lelouch would carry her all the time if he didn't insist that he do his fair share. The little girl wasn't heavy, but they'd been walking for hours and were all exhausted._

_Lelouch hadn't cried at all. The mask he had put on was astonishing, even injecting the reassuring smile into the tone of his voice when he spoke to Nunnally. She couldn't see the bodies, of course – men, women, children, days old and littering the wasteland once called Japan, thrown there like trash by Britannia's conquering army. But she'd asked what the overpowering smell was, to which her brother had replied with a smooth, kind lie to spare her the knowledge that, essentially, the three of them were walking through a graveyard._

_Suzaku hadn't been so strong – not in that respect. He hadn't even been able to hide his tears from Nunnally, who couldn't see them. She'd wiped them away with her hand, but she hadn't understood them as well as Lelouch had._

_Now Suzaku paused again, because they were still in the wasteland. It seemed never-ending, and when he looked at Lelouch, he traced the dirt on the back of his once-white shirt with his eyes and thought, 'Your country did this to my country…'._

_But then Lelouch turned towards him and the smile was still there and he understood. It wasn't just for Nunnally. It was for __**him**__ too._

"_Come on, Suzaku." The Britannian prince put out his hand as Suzaku had once done for him, pulling him up the rock face on the day their games ended, guillotined by Britannia's invasion._

_They had watched the world change together._

"_We have to keep walking."_

_Suzaku returned the smile and, having good grip on Nunnally with one arm, reached out with his other hand and took Lelouch's._

_They walked through the wasteland together._

"_Our countries did this to us," Suzaku whispered eventually._

_Lelouch's reply didn't fit Suzaku's statement – but, in retrospect, somehow fit everything else._

"_Don't let go, Suzaku," he said._

* * *

"…Originally, it was a traditional Japanese hot springs resort, but since… Hey! Lelouch!" Rivalz leaned right over the back of Lelouch's seat and smacked him on the head with the brochure. "Listen to me!"

Lelouch barely reacted to the assault, grumbling something inaudible and sleepily batting away the brochure.

"Geez…" Rivalz retreated slightly, but folded his arms over the top of Lelouch's seat. "You really need to get more sleep at night! You're always nodding off everywhere – in class, at Student Council meetings, even on the coach…!"

He looked at Suzaku as he said it, since he was getting little no response from Lelouch himself; the Japanese boy was in the seat next to him, apparently less bothered about him sleeping than Rivalz was.

"Oh, Lulu's an expert at sleeping in class," Shirley put in, leaning across the coach aisle from where she was seated next to Nina. "I wonder how he maintains such good grades…"

"It's exactly like Kallen Stadtfeld, though, right?" Rivalz asked by way of reply, looking now at Shirley. "She misses so much school, yet she's pretty much top of the class."

Shirley gave a nod.

"Well, she's ill," she said. "In fact, she couldn't even come on this trip. Apparently her doctor said it would be too strenuous for her."

Rivalz snorted.

"Bit of cold weather never hurt anyone," he replied; then looked back at the brochure he was clutching. "Though why there would have been a hot spring in such a cold place of Area Eleven is beyond me…"

"Not all hot springs are outdoors," Suzaku said, tilting his head to look up at him. "Well, originally it would have been outdoors, but in cold places they would be built around to make them indoor springs."

"We're not going for the hot springs, anyway," Rivalz said morosely. "Stupid Geography trip…"

"Still, it's a nice getaway for two days," Shirley murmured. "No schoolwork…"

"Not for _some_ people," Rivalz said slyly, looking at Lelouch – who had well and truly gone back to sleep against the coach window. "That walk tomorrow is going to _kill_ him. How many miles is it?"

"Four," Nina supplied, fidgeting with one of her plaits. "That is, four there and four back."

"So eight," Rival cackled. "I can't wait – though, frankly, I'm surprised he came at all."

"The Geography teacher said she'd fail him if he skipped the trip," Suzaku relayed, watching Rivalz's grin widen further.

"It's like his own personal hell!" he said gleefully, leaning over the seat again to prod at Lelouch. "Dibs on not carrying him when he collapses after half a mile!"

"Mr Cardemonde!" One of the teachers got out of her seat at the front of the coach and gestured accusingly at Rivalz. "Sit in your seat properly and stop behaving like a five year old! We're almost there."

Rivalz muttered to himself and slid back into his own seat, leaving Lelouch alone. Incidentally, Rivalz wasn't the only member of their class making a racket, with groups of girls chattering and giggling and the all-male clique who made it their policy to be very "anti-Eleven" occupying the back seats and throwing a ball back and forwards to one another.

That Lelouch had _managed_ to go to sleep was, all things considered, fairly impressive.

All the Student Council members were present bar three: Kallen, who hadn't been allowed to come, Milly, who was in a higher class, and Nunnally, who was in a lower class but wouldn't have been permitted to come anyway due to her disabilities. Suzaku was aware that Lelouch had tried to worm out of being made to go on the trip by protesting that he needed to look after Nunnally – but, unfortunately for Lelouch, every Ashford Academy teacher was aware that Nunnally had a nurse, Sayoko Shinozaki, to take the strain off her brother.

Suzaku was surprised that he'd actually been allowed to come himself, given his army duties. Lloyd had been a bit irritable regarding the whole thing, but Cecile had almost insisted that he go, signing the permission slip for him and personally putting it in his schoolbag to make sure that he didn't lose or forget it.

So here he was on the Ashford Academy school coach with the rest of his class, sitting next to Lelouch – who, despite having demanded that Suzaku sit next to him, hadn't really been brilliant company for the journey, merely bemoaning the fact that he was here at all before going to sleep. Suzaku had ended up talking more to Rivalz, sitting directly behind them, and Shirley, sitting across from them.

Nina still barely dared to look him in the eye.

Of course, her xenophobia was a sentiment shared with many other members of the Ashford Academy student body – in fact, Nina was really the least of Suzaku's concerns on that front, given that, while she appeared intimidated by him, she did not turn her dislike to action, which was more than he could say for some of the others.

He'd never been able to get the words out of his shirt, the painted-on letters clinging to the material as though they believed in the hateful message just as much as those who had put it there did.

Having friends in people like Shirley, Rivalz and Milly made it tolerable. Having Lelouch and Nunnally back, knowing that they were alright, made it better still. Lelouch telling him to sit next to him, not because he wanted to talk to him but simply so no-one _else_ could sit next to him, made him smile.

But it was still out there. The hate. The questioning of why he even thought himself deserving of being alive. It was on both sides – for Suzaku Kururugi was an Eleven and an Honorary Britannian.

Not Japanese. Not Britannian.

He turned his head to look out of the window and met Lelouch's gaze. The dark-haired boy was wide awake now, watching Suzaku in silence. Suzaku looked back at him, feeling the sudden awkwardness of the situation crawl down his spine, trying to think of something to say other than the obvious, redundant "Oh, so you're awake?".

"Are we nearly there?" Lelouch asked boredly, breaking the silence himself and turning to look out of the window again.

"I, uh… yes, I think so," Suzaku replied. "That's what the teacher just said…"

Lelouch gave a little nod, pressing his forehead to the glass, and said nothing else. Suzaku watched him for a moment, having no idea why a sudden unexpected and unwelcome wall of awkwardness had surfaced between them, but nonetheless being very much aware of it.

"Are… are you okay?" he asked at length.

"Of course," Lelouch replied, but his tone was clipped.

Suzaku shook his head.

"Still grouchy because of the walk tomorrow?" he asked with a smile.

Lelouch shot him a poisonous look over his shoulder, but didn't get a chance to answer, for Rivalz suddenly sprang up over the back of his chair again and beat him over the head with the brochure a second time.

"Oh, so you'll talk to Suzaku, but not me!" he said indignantly. "I wish Ms President was here – _then_ you'd be sorry!"

All three teachers overseeing the trip rose this time, united in their simultaneous storming of "_Mr Cardemonde!_".

—

"We'll have to be blunt with you," the Geography teacher said in the foyer, in which everyone was clustered with their various bags and cases. "Since this is a very small resort, a lot of you will have to share rooms."

This announcement was met with mingled response from the students, the girls overall giving the impression of being less bothered by the news.

Another of the teachers took up a box of keys as the first pulled out a list.

"We've done it alphabetically. Those left over will have one of the smaller rooms to themselves." She began to read off pairs of names as the keys were handed out – Rivalz was put with a blonde boy, Shirley with a brunette girl she knew from her swim team and Suzaku—

"There's no way in hell I'm sharing a room with an Eleven!"

The boy who'd been allocated to share with Suzaku – broadly-built, dark blonde hair, name of Jason Kingsley – actually threw his room key on the floor of the foyer as he said it, perhaps as a dramatic expression of his disgust. He was one of the group of boys that had been at the back of the coach – likely even one of those who'd sprayed that awful message on Suzaku's gym shirt.

"Mr Kingsley," the first teacher said curtly, "please don't be so immature. Mr Kururugi is an Honorary Britannian." She went back to her list, paying little heed to Jason Kingsley and his tantrum.

"I mean it!" Jason spat, kicking his key across the floor. "Damned Elevens shouldn't even be in Ashford to begin with! If my father knew I was being made to share with a Number—"

"I'm sorry if you don't approve of it," Suzaku interrupted calmly, picking up the key and offering it back to Jason, "but that's the way it is."

"That's not for you to say, Eleven!" One of Jason's buddies picked up the slack, knocking the key out of Suzaku's upturned palm. "_We_ make the rules – and Jay says he's not sharing with you!"

"So clear off, Number!" another of the boys added, giving Suzaku a shove that didn't hurt him but pushed him backwards a pace or two.

"Hey, back off!" Rivalz appeared at Suzaku's side and folded his arms. "No wonder there's all that fuss with the terrorists – they're just sick of being pushed around by jerks like you!"

"If you sympathise so much, why don't you go be an Honorary Eleven then, Cardemonde?" Jason sneered.

"Boys!" The third teacher broke between them and flapped his hands at them. "Get moving! Go to your rooms. We'll be eating dinner in the dining room in twenty minutes."

The group dispersed, Rivalz giving Suzaku a reassuring clap on the shoulder as he passed him. All that remained were people who still hadn't received keys, Jason and Suzaku, the former glaring balefully at the latter as he glanced about for the key again.

Lelouch, who had just been given his own key, suddenly stepped level with him – and, in his other hand, was Jason's room key. However, he kept hold of it and instead threw Jason the key that he had just received.

"Room twenty-two," he said flatly. "You're sharing with Callum Last. He is, as far as I know, one hundred per cent Britannian." His purple eyes narrowed. "Of course, that doesn't automatically ensure that he'll be a good room-mate."

Jason Kingsley opened his mouth but clearly had no comeback, for he grabbed up his bag, threw it over his hefty shoulder and stomped away.

"Sorry I didn't step in sooner," Lelouch muttered as soon as the Britannian boy was out of earshot. "I had to get my own key so I could swap it with him. I figured Rivalz might have something to say, anyway."

"You didn't have to do that, Lelouch."

"Of course I did," Lelouch said absently as he went to get his bag.

"No, you…" Suzaku gave a little sigh. "I don't want you and Rivalz making yourselves unpopular."

Lelouch gave a snort.

"Who wants to be popular with idiots like them?"

"They might start picking on you too."

Lelouch rolled his eyes at him.

"Are you done?" he asked irritably. "Here, if you want to make it up to me, you can carry this."

He handed Suzaku his bag without waiting for a reply and left the foyer. Suzaku merely gave a little shake of his head, got a better grip on Lelouch's bag, picked up his own and followed.

"We're in room eighteen," he said, almost catching him up.

"I know. It says on the key." Lelouch jingled it from its metal loop as he made the reply and shot Suzaku a little smirk over his shoulder.

He looked very pleased with himself – most likely because he'd gotten someone else to carry his bag for him.

He twirled the key deftly over in his fingers as he reached the door of Room 18, unlocking it with a neat _click_ and stepping in, leaving the door open for Suzaku to follow. When Suzaku entered the room as well, gently kicking the door shut behind him, he found Lelouch standing in the middle of the room with his hands on his hips, eyes fixated on something behind the wall of the en suite bathroom.

"Looks like you made a lucky escape," Lelouch said at length, looking sidelong at Suzaku. "From sharing with Jason Kingsley, I mean."

Suzaku blinked.

"I did?"

Lelouch nodded and tilted his head towards the object he'd been studying so critically.

"It's a double bed," he said expressionlessly.

* * *

At around 11pm, after dinner and an hour or two of lazing around in the lounge area of the resort (during which Rivalz was told off no less than three times for throwing sweet wrappers into the open fire to watch them shrivel up in the intense heat), they were all packed off to bed with strict instructions to wear warm clothes for the following day's walk and a warning that they were leaving at 9am.

"Oh, it won't be _that_ bad," Suzaku sighed, shutting the bedroom door as Lelouch went and threw himself face-down on the bed like a dying swan.

"Alright for you to say, Mr Trained Soldier," Lelouch muttered blackly into the bedsheets. "But for us mere mortals, eight miles is a _lot_!"

"You're the only one complaining about it, Lelouch."

"That's because _I'm_ the only one the teacher _forced_ to come on this trip!"

"That's because _you're_ the only one who tried to squirm out of it."

"Whose side are you on?" Lelouch asked bitterly, rolling over onto his back; he reached up and pulled one of the pillows over his head. "It's no good – I'll have to fake my own death…"

"Hey… you're not _actually_ trying to suffocate yourself, are you?" Suzaku asked, coming closer to the bed.

Lelouch lifted the pillow again and glared out at him from beneath it.

"Of course not, idiot," he snapped. "I said I was going to _fake_ my own death."

"Right." Suzaku arched an eyebrow. "Well, while you consider exactly how you're going to do that, I'm going to go use the bathroom first."

Lelouch snorted and let the pillow drop back onto his face again. Suzaku left him to his sulking, rifled through his bag for his toothbrush and went into the en suite bathroom. As he brushed his teeth, he thought that he wouldn't be in the least bit surprised if Lelouch managed to escape going on the walk yet – he could be extremely devious when he badly wanted his own way. He couldn't pretend to be sick, as the teacher who'd made him come on the trip in the first place would see straight through the act, but although Suzaku couldn't see quite how else he'd do it, he admitted that he was interested to see if Lelouch managed to pull off fleeing his fate.

"You know," he said as he emerged from the bathroom again (finding that Lelouch hadn't moved at all), "it's a shame that all the apothecaries close so early in these parts. I'm sure you could have gotten hold of some kind of sleeping potion that only gives the simulation of death."

"Oh, I'm _so_ glad you learned something in English Literature," Lelouch retorted venomously, throwing off the pillow and sitting up. He got off the bed and stalked past Suzaku towards the bathroom, though paused long enough in the threshold to reinstate his usual haughty poise and fling "A plague on both your houses!" at the other boy.

Suzaku met the _Romeo and Juliet_ line with a smile and a little shake of his head, which seemed to irritate Lelouch even further, for he said nothing more but shut the bathroom door rather loudly behind him.

Not that Suzaku knew exactly what kind of reaction he'd been expecting by his quoting of Shakespeare, anyway.

He went to the wardrobe and opened it up, finding what he was looking for on the top shelf within it; then went to the bed and took off two of the pillows, putting the whole lot on the floor. He started to undress, unbuttoning and unbuckling his Ashford uniform jacket and starting on his shirt.

The bathroom door opened and Lelouch emerged just as he shrugged his open shirt off; the Britannian boy, who had already changed into his pyjamas in the bathroom, immediately averted his gaze.

"Sorry," he muttered. "I didn't realise you were changing…"

Suzaku turned to him, blinking in surprise.

"Lelouch, it's fine…" He smiled. "Besides, it's not like you haven't seen me shirtless before. We used to go swimming in the river, remember?"

"That was years ago." Lelouch still didn't look at him as he crossed towards the bed to put down his folded clothes. "We were little kids."

"I know that." Suzaku gave a sudden impish grin. "I sure hope your swimming has improved since then."

Lelouch gave another snort and turned away from Suzaku, allowing him to finish changing as he preoccupied himself with putting his clothes away. Suzaku watched him as he undressed, noting that he still had all his neat little habits from seven years ago, right down to the way he smoothed out any creases in his clothes even after he'd put them in the drawer. Of course, Suzaku was careful with his own clothing – he had to be, since the Britannian Army didn't tolerate any soldier who couldn't even take care of their uniform, but Lelouch was just on another level.

Of course, a lot of other things about him had changed. Before… he had been nice-looking, but it had been a purely childish charm – now he was beautiful, which was much less an opinion and more of a universal, unanimous agreement. Before, he had been angry and scared, trying to fend for himself and his little sister in a world that had all but turned its back on them both, and it had been obvious – now, if those feeling still existed within him, they were well-hidden beneath the flawless, friendly-but-distant mask of Lelouch Lamperouge.

But still… seeing him now, clothed in royal-blue, long-sleeved silky pyjamas that looked just a little bit too big for his thin frame as he distractedly chased every crease out of his folded school shirt, Suzaku knew that the little boy he'd (eventually) made friends with all those years ago was still in there somewhere.

(Though he hoped that the little boy _Lelouch_ had made friends with all those years ago wasn't still inside _him_.)

Eventually Lelouch's assault on his school uniform seemed complete and he rose, turning back to Suzaku.

"Where are your pyjamas?" he asked crossly, not bothering to prudishly look away this time.

"I didn't bring any."

"Why?"

"I don't really wear them that much, to be honest."

"But it's _freezing_ here, Suzaku."

"Not in here, it isn't."

The idea of someone sleeping in just their underwear seemed to annoy Lelouch more than Suzaku would have expected – though, really, it just made it all the more amusing to watch him flounder for another barb to hurl at Suzaku's minimalist sleeping attire.

In the end, though, he simply gave a huffy sigh and went to the bed.

"Oh, do whatever you want, idiot," he muttered darkly.

His regime of "letting Suzaku do whatever he wanted" did, however, soon screech to an abrupt halt as he heard him rustling around on the floor next to the bed with pillows and the extra blankets he'd found in the wardrobe.

"What are you doing?" Lelouch demanded, pausing in pulling back the covers of the bed.

"Huh?" Suzaku looked up at him. "Oh, I'm going to sleep down here."

It seemed to take Lelouch longer to formulate an answer to this than usual, but even when he eventually spoke, all he asked was "_Why_?" in a very end-of-rope manner.

"Well, I assume that you don't really want to share a bed with me," Suzaku said lightly, going back to arranging his nest of pillows and blankets.

"I…" Lelouch kneaded wearily at his forehead. "It's a _double bed_!"

"Lelouch, it's _fine_. Don't worry about me. I've slept in much worse places than a hotel room floor. Trained soldier, remember?"

"Yes, but…" Lelouch shook his head incredulously at him. "Suzaku, we've shared a bed before."

"That was years ago," Suzaku said absently. "We were little kids."

Lelouch didn't take kindly to having his own argument thrown back in his face word-for-word; he looked at Suzaku without speaking for a long moment, then went back to pulling back the bedsheets, albeit more aggressively.

"Whatever," he muttered, his tone clipped; he got into bed and rolled over away from Suzaku to face the wall.

Suzaku paused to look at him for a moment, bewildered. Seriously, there was just no pleasing Lelouch sometimes – he'd thought that his giving up the bed to sleep on the floor so that Lelouch could have the whole thing to himself would have been something the Britannian boy would have both welcomed and been very grateful for.

Apparently not.

Still, Suzaku went on with making his own bed up on the floor. It was too late now, he'd already annoyed him – and the young solider didn't _want_ to share the bed with him if he was going to sulk.

He got his blankets and pillows in order, turned out the light and curled up under them. Suzaku knew how to make a bed out of pretty much anything, so it was actually quite comfortable. Of course, Lelouch might not have agreed, but Lelouch was exactly the kind of person who'd be able to feel a pea beneath twenty mattresses.

"Goodnight, Lelouch," Suzaku said to the silent room, after debating a moment.

No answer. He couldn't be asleep already. He was most likely just seething under the covers.

Suzaku shrugged to himself. He couldn't do anything more. Even if he went and got in the bed now, Lelouch would probably shove him out. Or _try_ to, at least – Suzaku doubted very much that he'd actually be able to physically push him out.

It was well over fifteen minutes later, when Suzaku was almost asleep, that the pillow came crashing down on his skull, jolting him awake. He sat bolt upright, heart thudding with shock, and looked around wildly, eyes quickly getting used to the dark.

"Lelouch?" he asked sleepily, picking out the dark shape of the other boy sitting up against the headboard of the bed.

There was still no answer, but moments later Lelouch reached out and flicked on the bedside lamp, illuminating the room with a dull golden glow. Suzaku shielded his eyes against it initially, but when they readjusted and he lowered his arm, he found that Lelouch was still gazing at him impassively from his higher position.

Eventually the violet-eyed boy threw back the covers on the side of the bed closest to Suzaku, baring the soft white mattress beneath.

"Get in the bed, Suzaku," he said coldly, not taking his eyes off him.

It wasn't worth it. It simply wasn't worth arguing with him over something so trivial. Suzaku obediently rose, picked up both the pillow Lelouch had thrown at him and one for himself and clambered into the bed. Lelouch averted his gaze as he did so, looking straight ahead at the dresser opposite.

"I'm sorry," Suzaku said eventually, putting the pillows back where they belonged. "I… I didn't think you'd be offended."

"I completely understand why you wouldn't want to share a bed with a xenophobic idiot like Jason Kingsley," Lelouch replied stonily, folding his arms and still not looking at him, "but you _know_ we're not all like him. Milly, Shirley, Rivalz, Nunnally and I…"

"No, I know, I just—"

"Why didn't you want to share with me?" Lelouch suddenly turned his gaze back on him, his amethyst eyes icy. "And if you say it's because you're an "Eleven" and I'm a Britannian, I swear I'll never speak to you again."

Suzaku shrugged helplessly.

"I don't know, I just thought… well, we're both seventeen and I figured you just wouldn't want to share. It's not that _I_…" Suzaku gave a sigh. "What I'm trying to say is that I really _didn't_ mean to offend you. I'm sorry, okay?"

"You already said that."

"Well…" Suzaku trailed off, unable to think of anything else to say; Lelouch tired of glaring at him and went back to looking at the dresser across the room from them.

"Goodnight, then," Suzaku murmured eventually, closing his eyes as he sank to the mattress on his side and pulling the covers over himself.

"Goodnight," Lelouch replied frostily; but he didn't move, remaining sitting up against the headboard.

After a long moment, Suzaku opened his eyes again.

"You're still angry," he said, starting to get a little irritated himself; though he didn't turn to Lelouch and didn't rise.

There was another long bout of icy silence; but eventually Lelouch sighed.

"I'm not angry at you," he said softly. "Well… I _am_, a little bit, but…"

"But what?" Suzaku pressed, sitting up again and looking at Lelouch.

"It's them," Lelouch replied. "People like them. I can't stand the way they treat you, or the way they treat any of the other Japanese, or—"

"_Lelouch_."

"But I know what it's _like_, Suzaku!" Lelouch snapped, refusing to be silenced by him. "I know what it's like to be hated because you're different. When Nunnally and I first came to Japan, I felt like we couldn't trust anyone. I knew they all hated us. They hated us because we were Britannian—"

"_I_ hated you because you were Britannian," Suzaku interrupted again. "And then I learned that I was wrong. People _do_ learn, Lelouch. You have to trust that."

"No." Lelouch shook his head, finally meeting Suzaku's gaze again. "People only learn what you teach them. Jason Kingsley was taught to look down on "Elevens" by his parents. Britannians were taught that they were better than everyone else by their ruler. People won't learn things that are wrong unless they are taught them – and when that happens, then you have to teach them everything that's _right_, as well."

So it _was_ still there. The anger. Suzaku looked at the seventeen-year-old Lelouch Lamperouge and saw in him the ten-year-old Lelouch Vi Britannia, who had stood against the bleeding sun in that wasteland they had crossed hand-in-hand and vowed that he would destroy Britannia.

He remembered that day. He remembered that he had been left by himself when men in black suits and sunglasses came and took Lelouch and Nunnally away. He remembered Lelouch protesting and almost crying when he was told that Suzaku Kururugi was being left behind. He remembered standing in the dust and watching the car pull away, holding Lelouch's gaze as long as he could.

He remembered thinking that it was unfair that they had made it across the corpse-cluttered hell together, filthy and tired, hungry and thirsty, even managing to bring with them a little girl who could neither see nor walk, only to be pulled apart at the other side by those who were responsible for it.

"Suzaku?"

Suzaku blinked, coming back to his senses. Both Lelouch's expression and tone had softened.

"What?" Suzaku asked offishly.

"Are you crying?" But Lelouch didn't wait for a verbal answer, reaching up and wiping at Suzaku's wet eyes with the cuff of his pyjama shirt.

"Of course I'm not crying," Suzaku replied with a weak grin.

"Liar." Lelouch frowned. "…I didn't mean to make you cry."

"You didn't. I was thinking about something else."

"_Romeo and Juliet_ again?" Lelouch asked dryly.

"No, I…" Suzaku sank into silence again. He didn't think he really wanted to get into this. Not right now – maybe not ever.

"Suzaku?" Lelouch persisted.

"You know," Suzaku said – blurting it out quickly, quietly, "when I… well, that day they came and took you and Nunnally away, I thought… that was it, that I'd never see you again."

Lelouch was silent for a moment – clearly he hadn't been expecting that as Suzaku's answer.

"It seemed that way, didn't it?" he said finally, his own voice soft.

"Then I heard you were dead."

Lelouch said nothing to that at all.

"Then," Suzaku said, his voice barely audible, "you came back."

Lelouch looked away.

"Would you rather I'd stayed dead, Suzaku?" he murmured.

"Of course not!" Suzaku grabbed his wrist as he said it to assert the meaning of it. "Lelouch, when I saw you, when I realised that it was you—"

"I thought _you_ were dead, too." Lelouch pulled his thin wrist out of Suzaku's grip. "I didn't want to think it at first, and I suppose I was young enough to fool myself. Whenever Nunnally asked me if I thought you were okay, I always lied and said yes. But we left you behind, and in the end… I came to the conclusion that no-one had come to get you and that you'd died alone out there, and I knew… that if you'd died thinking that nobody cared, you'd have been both right and wrong. Japan didn't care. Britannia didn't care. But _I_ did."

"But I'm alive, Lelouch." Suzaku took hold of the other boy's thin shoulders this time, physically turning him towards himself.

"So am I, Suzaku," Lelouch replied despondently, meeting his gaze again.

"I know." Suzaku nodded, hesitated, then slipped his hands past Lelouch's shoulders and wrapped his arms around the Britannian boy's slender frame, pulling him against him in an embrace. "…_I'm so glad_."

He felt Lelouch initially stiffen in his grasp but didn't let go; moments later, the smaller boy relaxed into his hold and tightly bound his own arms around Suzaku's back. He didn't say anything, didn't make a sound at all, but after a while of being still in the Japanese boy's hold, Suzaku felt him shaking slightly.

"Are you crying?" Suzaku asked, smiling a little at the irony of the turn-around as he disentangled Lelouch's arms from himself and pushed him back a little.

"No," Lelouch said tautly, fiercely wiping at his eyes himself.

"Liar."

"Shut up, idiot." Lelouch batted at him with all the ferocity of a particularly tired-out kitten.

Suzaku laughed a little; but when it died away he realised that he didn't really know what he'd been laughing at and that he and Lelouch were still very, very close.

So close that they…

He didn't think about it. Not before it happened. Not while it was happening. He had no idea which of them had leaned in first. He thought Lelouch might have been the one to accommodate and tilt his head, but he couldn't be quite sure.

But this wasn't years ago. This was now. And they weren't little kids anymore.

He felt Lelouch threading his fingers in his hair, tangling in his curls. That was the first move. So he thought it would be okay to touch Lelouch back. And, at first, Lelouch didn't seem to mind him trailing his hands down his throat and running them over his chest; but when Suzaku went to the buttons of his blue pyjama shirt and slipped the first one undone—

Lelouch broke the kiss abruptly and jerked out of his grasp. He gazed at Suzaku breathlessly for a moment, the colour flaring in his usually-pale face.

"I'm sorry," Suzaku burst out, kicking himself mentally. "I-I wasn't going to—"

"It's okay, Suzaku." Lelouch averted his gaze, reached over him, flicked off the lamp and darted back to his own side of the bed, curling up under the covers. "Goodnight."

Suzaku sat in the dark, furious with himself. He hadn't been trying to undress Lelouch, he'd just wanted to touch him beyond the barrier of material, but he knew he shouldn't have been so forward. He'd scared him off, and as if things hadn't been on the path to being awkward tomorrow morning anyway…

He decided that Lelouch probably really _didn't_ want him in the bed anymore and pushed back the covers, making to get out—

Without saying a word, Lelouch reached out and grabbed his wrist, stopping him.

Suzaku lay back and pulled the bedsheets over himself once more. He looked up at the ceiling in the dark, feeling Lelouch's fingers still clutching at him, and smiled.

"Goodnight, Lelouch," he whispered.

* * *

They were closer come morning. Suzaku opened his eyes at the shrill serenade of the alarm and found Lelouch facing him, only a few inches from him, still asleep. He lay still for a few moments, observant of their nearness, Lelouch's unconsciousness dissipating any awkwardness – but eventually the alarm clock picked up its pace and he was forced to sit up and reach out to turn it off.

He glanced back at Lelouch, who still hadn't moved, and wondered if he really hadn't heard the alarm or was just pretending to still be asleep.

Suzaku got up, leaned over and shook Lelouch to remedy either his actually being asleep or his pretending to be asleep.

"Come on, Lelouch. It's seven-thirty."

He'd forgotten how grouchy Lelouch could be in the morning – the Britannian boy opened his eyes just enough to shoot Suzaku a truly filthy look before pulling the covers up over his head.

Suzaku sighed and left him, going to the bathroom. Well, it was probably a combination of him not being much of a morning person and the whole reason he was being made to get up in the first place…

Lelouch was, however, sitting up in bed when he returned, typing something into his phone.

"Rivalz just texted me," he said blandly, not looking up. "He said he'll come by in fifteen minutes and go down to breakfast with us."

"Oh. Okay." Suzaku gave a nod, knelt down by his bag and started to dig around in it, unearthing the clothes he'd brought for the day's walk.

Lelouch fidgeted with his phone for another long moment, then eventually slid it closed and pushed back the sheets completely, stepping lightly out of bed and padding barefoot across the floor towards his own bag.

Suzaku lifted his head, pausing in his own task to watch Lelouch go about his own. At the moment his fine dark hair was sticking out at odd angles, messy from sleep – it was almost comforting to see him looking less than perfect, even for just a moment. That said, Suzaku got the feeling that if Lelouch had had to share with Callum Last instead, he might not have been so at ease wandering around with bed-hair, but in front of Suzaku, he didn't seem to mind.

Suzaku was far from insulted. In fact, it was a good sign. It meant that Lelouch was comfortable with him—

Even if things _were_, as he'd predicted, slightly strained between them right now. Lelouch hadn't looked at him at all except to glare at him.

"Did you bring a coat?" Lelouch asked abruptly, breaking the silence and actually making Suzaku jump.

"I, uh… yeah." Suzaku fished it out from his bag and held it up to show him. "Here it is."

Lelouch gave a nod, gathered up his own clothes and went to the bathroom.

"Good," he said curtly, and he shut the door.

Suzaku gave a little shake of his head and went back to taking out his clothes so that he could dress. Lelouch and his picky little ways – Suzaku knew that he'd only asked about the coat in case the Japanese boy had opted not to bring one the way he hadn't brought his pyjamas. Maybe it was just because he'd spent, since the death of Marianne, seven years looking after his little sister, who'd always relied on him more than any other girl her age would due to her condition, but it was amusing to see little nuances of that kind of behaviour surface now and then from beneath the cool, blasé façade of Lelouch Lamperouge.

Lelouch took ages in the bathroom, but when he emerged, he was fully-dressed and perfectly immaculate, every ebony hair now obeying his orders. He put his folded pyjamas in the drawer next to his school uniform, went to retrieve his phone from the bed, then came over to Suzaku and fixed his collar for him in a rather irritated manner.

"Sorry," Suzaku murmured, standing still to let him adjust it.

"It's okay," Lelouch replied distractedly.

"I meant… about last night."

Lelouch paused.

"That's okay, too," he said at length.

"No, it's…" Suzaku took Lelouch's wrists as he withdrew his hands after putting the collar right, making him finally meet his gaze again. "I just don't want… things to be awkward between us over something so stupid. I mean, I… I only just got you back, and I want things to be like they were before, when—"

"When Japan hadn't been taken over by Britannia?" Lelouch interrupted expressionlessly. "That would be nice, wouldn't it?"

"I _mean_," Suzaku pressed, ignoring him, "that I want our friendship to be like it was when we were kids."

Lelouch raised his eyebrows at him and slipped his wrists from his grasp.

"Well, that seems a rather depressing way of putting it," he said.

"Why?" Suzaku asked in surprise. "That summer with you and Nunnally… that was probably the best time of my life—"

"But we were all you had. And _you_… aside from Nunnally, you were all _I_ had. Suzaku, that summer was wonderful, and I'll never forget it, but we both have more than that now." Lelouch shook his head at him. "You can't live in the past."

"Then what?" Suzaku asked quietly. "If it's all meaningless—"

"That's not what I said. Of course it all means something. If you want the future, you have to have the past – you have to learn from it. Sometimes you have to make it your reason to fight. Don't you remember, Suzaku? I told you not to let go." Lelouch offered his hand to Suzaku now, as he had back then. "But holding on… isn't the same as living in the past. I don't want our friendship to be the same – because _we_ aren't the same."

"But—"

Lelouch closed in on him again and kissed him. Suzaku floundered, taken by surprise, not sure what to do with his hands. In the end he lowered them, about to settle them at Lelouch's waist—

There was a knock at the door and Lelouch broke from him immediately.

"Rivalz," he muttered, and he went to open the door, leaving Suzaku standing in the middle of the room, stunned.

"Well, well, Mr Lamperouge," Rivalz drawled on Lelouch opening the door, "I see you're dressed and ready for the walk like a good little boy."

"Shut up," Lelouch responded icily. "You know as well as I do that there's no way the teacher would believe me if I suddenly and strangely came down with something that would prevent me from going on the walk."

"It's called 'Crying Wolf'," Rivalz mused agreeably, looking over Lelouch's shoulder. "Ready, Suzaku?"

"Hm?" Suzaku blinked at him. "Oh, yeah, right." He pulled himself together and went to join Lelouch and Rivalz at the door.

"Let's go, then." Rivalz led the way down the corridor towards the dining room, his hands behind his head. "How did you two sleep? I wasn't great, myself – I'm sharing with Alex Carter, nice enough guy, you know, but hell, he snores like _anything_, it was seriously unbelievable… I feel okay at the moment but I bet it'll kick in later." He leaned back to nudge Lelouch sharply in the ribs. "Looks like you'll have some company when you're trudging three miles behind everyone else."

"I look forward to it," Lelouch replied acidly.

Rivalz only grinned good-naturedly and turned his bright gaze on Suzaku, who was walking next to Lelouch rather silently.

"How about you?" he asked, arresting Suzaku's otherwise-averted attention. "Lucky Lelouch was able to swap his key, otherwise you'd have had to share with that idiot Kingsley."

Suzaku gave an absent nod but didn't say anything; Rivalz frowned and looked at them both in turn.

"Hey, did you two have a fight?" he asked, turning and walking backwards so that he could gauge their reactions to his questions. "Because I know why _he's_ grumpy, but seriously, Suzaku, you're usually much more cheerful than this."

"Of course we didn't have a fight," Lelouch snapped. "Do you really think we're so childish that we can't be left in a room together overnight without arguing?"

Rivalz shrugged.

"Well then, I guess your bad mood has just rubbed off on Suzaku, too," he sighed, turning around again to walk properly. "It's a shame, he was always such a nice young man…"

Suzaku actually couldn't help but laugh slightly at that, but Lelouch and Rivalz were still idly squabbling when the three of them entered the dining room to get breakfast; Shirley waved to them from a table where she, her room-mate and Nina were already sitting, gesturing to the three free seats at it.

"Awesome," Rivalz said in a gleeful tone, leading the way over the breakfast buffet, "we don't even have to battle for seats – Shirley saved us some…"

Their path to the plates was, however, blocked by Jason Kingsley and his little gang.

"Guys, the buffet is that way," Rivalz said flatly, pointing behind them.

"Shut up, Cardemonde," Jason replied, not even looking at Rivalz; instead his gaze was fixated on Suzaku, the rest of his little group grew closer behind him. "So, Eleven, what was it like sucking Britannian cock?"

Suzaku blinked at him.

"Wh-what?"

"Well, _he_ seemed pretty desperate about sharing a room with you," Jason went on, nodding at Lelouch, "and I can think of only one reason why any Britannian would want to share with trash like you."

"No, you've got it all—" Suzaku started.

"Leave Suzaku alone," Lelouch interrupted icily, addressing Jason.

"Or what?" Jason asked dismissively, not looking at Lelouch either. "You've got a lot of nerve telling me what to do, Lamperouge, when you spend your time hanging around with Elevens. Even just shagging them is—"

"Mr Kingsley, another word and you'll be banned from the walk," the male teacher said in a hard voice, descending into the little group out of nowhere. "All of you, go and get something to eat or you'll be walking on an empty stomach."

Jason Kingsley hesitated, then gave a shrug and sloped off with his little gaggle of followers. The teacher gestured sarcastically towards the buffet to Rivalz, Lelouch and Suzaku and went on his way.

"Well, look at that, Lelouch," Rivalz observed. "There _is_ a way out of going on the walk after all – just be a racist jerk to Suzaku." He frowned. "Though, that said, for _you_ they'd probably _double_ the amount of miles."

"It's alright," Lelouch replied gloomily. "There's still time to throw myself off the roof."

Rivalz gave a mockingly-morose nod and went to get a plate. Lelouch started to follow him, but Suzaku grabbed at his sleeve.

"Lelouch—" he began worriedly.

"It's alright." Lelouch smiled a sour smile that wasn't directed at him. "They don't know anything."

—

In the end, Lelouch didn't throw himself off anything and was forced to endure the walk.

At first, they – Shirley, Rivalz, Suzaku and Nina – all stayed with him at the back of the rough line of students, but eventually they began to taper off. Shirley got tired of him answering her questions with irritable one-word answers and went on ahead with Nina, the girl she was sharing her room with and some other girls from her swim team. Suzaku and Rivalz tried to stay with him but kept unintentionally leaving him behind when he lagged.

While Suzaku wasn't surprised that Lelouch complained the whole time ("If he stopped wasting his breath whining, he wouldn't be nearly so tired," Rivalz muttered confidentially to Suzaku – not that there'd been any need to whisper, for Lelouch was quite a way behind them), he couldn't help but remember the day they had walked amongst the dead, carrying Nunnally between them.

It had been miles and miles; hot and dirty and rotting and they'd only been ten years old, but Lelouch hadn't complained once.

They'd been walking for several hours, making notes on their clipboards and taking photographs and drawing sketches, when they came upon the frozen lake. The teachers huddled together and fussed over their maps for a moment, and then the male teacher went to test how thick the ice was.

"If we cross in single file, it should be safe," he decided; but went first nonetheless to test the theory. He made it across unscathed and beckoned to the class. "Just watch your step at the middle," he called. "It's a little thinner there."

The other two teachers herded everyone across in a neat line ("Mr Cardemonde! _No skating_!") and assembled at the other side, starting a quick headcount.

"Hey!" Rivalz said suddenly, glancing around. "Where's Lelouch? Wasn't he just with us?"

One of the female teachers picked up on his question and started to scan the crowd of students.

"Where's Lelouch Lamperouge?" she demanded.

"He must have been left behind again," Shirley said, going to the edge and looking out across the frozen lake.

The teacher rounded on Rivalz and Suzaku.

"The last time I saw him, he was with you two!"

"The last time _we_ saw him, he was with us!" Rivalz said defensively.

"There he is!" Shirley chirped, pointing across the ice. She waved her hands to get his attention. "Lulu! Come on!"

"Lamperouge!" the teacher stormed. "Hurry up, for god's sake!" She turned to the rest of the students and gestured to them to keep moving. "The rest of you get going… Miss Fenette, get _away_ from the ice, please."

Shirley stepped back next to Rivalz and Suzaku, still waving.

"Come on, Lulu!" she called. "We're waiting for you!"

"Where the hell has he been?" Rivalz said incredulously, watching Lelouch start onto the ice after a moment of looking at it critically. "I wouldn't have believed it, but it appears he actually _does_ get slower if you don't pay any attention to him… Come _on_, Lelouch!"

"I hope the ice hasn't weakened too much from us all walking across it," Nina put in quietly from where she was standing a further few paces back.

"Eh, someone like Lelouch wouldn't be the one to break the ice," Rivalz said dismissively—

And as though for bitter irony, the ice shattered just as Rivalz said it and Lelouch went under.

Shirley screamed. Several of the students came haring back to the ice at the sound of it, wondering why she'd shrieked and why the teacher was having to restrain her from running out onto the ice.

"Let go!" Shirley screeched. "I'm a good swimmer!"

"You'll freeze to death!" The teacher threw Shirley back onto the bank and looked out across the lake, now punctured in the middle, as the other two teachers came to join her.

There was no movement at all from the lake.

"Someone _do_ something!" Rivalz burst out. "He's going to drown!"

"He won't have drowned yet, he may still surface," the male teacher said distractedly. "It's too dangerous to send someone to— _Kururugi_!"

In all the time they'd been dealing with Shirley and flustering about what to do, Suzaku had pulled off his coat and scarf and dropped everything else he'd been carrying; and now he bolted past them all onto the ice, ignoring their furious yells of his name and their reprimands of his actions.

"He's a soldier," Rivalz said firmly, grabbing one of the female teachers by her coat sleeve. "He's trained for stuff like this."

There was nothing any of them could do to stop him, anyway; he plunged into the icy water through the hole that had spread and cracked further by his approach and was gone.

Rivalz went to pick up Shirley, who was sobbing, as the rest of the class all clustered curiously around the ice, murmuring amongst themselves. Even Jason Kingsley seemed a bit rattled.

What seemed like an eternity passed. One by one the students fell into a spellbound hush and only the bitter wind was audible. The frightening, alien uncertainty ran untapped through them all.

And then Suzaku broke the surface. He managed to haul himself out of the water, and when he did, gasping for breath, it was clear that he'd dragged Lelouch out with him. He allowed himself barely a moment for recovery, picking Lelouch up under his back and knees and bringing him to the bank, some way away from the crowd. However, they didn't take the hint and flocked towards him.

"Kururugi," one of the teachers began briskly, "is he—?"

"Get back, all of you," Suzaku snapped, not even looking at them as he wrenched at the zip of Lelouch's wet coat. "He's not breathing."

He got Lelouch's coat open, giving him better access to his chest, and bent over him, pressing their mouths together to breathe life back into him. On seeing how serious it was, the group of students and teachers backed off again, giving Suzaku room to try and revive him.

Lelouch wasn't responding to his attempts. He just lay on the snowy bank, cold and lifeless, wet hair plastered against his pale forehead and his lips a beautiful shade of blue. After three systematic, calm, controlled cycles of breathing into him and pushing against his chest to try and make his lungs catch the breath, all of which failed, Suzaku started to panic.

"Come _on_, Lelouch," he muttered desperately, lapsing into Japanese, pushing the heels of his hands against the unconscious boy's ribcage. "Wake up, you have to wake up…" Tears began to well and the heat of them on his freezing face stung. "You have to live… remember, we just had that talk last night about us each thinking the other of us was dead, and we were both wrong, and you can't… you can't just go and throw that all away now… I won't lose you again, so _wake up_!"

He withdrew. Lelouch still lay unresponsively on the snow-covered grass. Any longer and, if he woke up, it would be brain-damaged—

No. Who was he kidding? Any longer and he wouldn't wake up at all.

Suzaku took one final breath and gave it to Lelouch, quicker off the mark this time, and harder, too, in ramming his hands against his lungs—

Lelouch jerked under his touch and coughed, the sound of it garbled, liquid-filled; Suzaku lifted him and turned him over, giving him a smack on the back to help him cough up the water in his lungs. Lelouch spluttered and shivered, but despite how miserable he seemed, Suzaku smiled weakly.

He was alive.

"Lulu!"

"Miss Fenette! Mr Cardemonde, please… _all_ of you, we don't need an audience. Keep walking." The male teacher, who had spoken, lowered himself down next to Suzaku as the other two teachers shepherded the rest of the class away. "I've called the resort. Someone is going to come by car on the mountain road to collect the two of you and take you back. You'll have to go straight to the First Aid wing."

Suzaku gave a wordless nod, beginning to shiver as the coldness began to reacquaint itself with his adrenaline-sapped body. Rivalz brought him his coat before being moved along with Shirley and Nina, but Suzaku wrapped it around Lelouch instead.

Lelouch seemed on the verge of passing out again, but clung with wet fingers to Suzaku's soaked sweater.

"I'm afraid you'll have to walk a little way to get to the road," the teacher said when only the three of them remained. "I'm very sorry, but we're kind of out of the way… We hadn't expected an accident like this to happen."

"Accident…" Suzaku's green eyes narrowed as he rose, pulling Lelouch up with him – the Britannian boy could barely stand, his knees buckling under his own weight. "He nearly _died_."

"I am aware of that." The teacher got walking, leading the way.

"Then why didn't you do anything?!" Suzaku burst out.

"What could we have done? Only someone like you – someone trained to deal with this kind of situation – could have gone in after him and not gotten themselves killed as well." The teacher didn't look at him. "I suppose it's a very good thing that you were here, Mr Kururugi."

"Well, you can thank Her Highness Princess Euphemia Li Britannia for that small mercy," Suzaku replied stiffly.

"If you put it that way," the teacher said absently, "then we owe nothing to an Eleven in this situation."

Suzaku stopped, still holding Lelouch up, watching the man – a teacher – walk on ahead.

Because Lelouch had said that people didn't learn the wrong thing unless they were taught. The same went for the right things, but…

"I'm sorry," Suzaku said softly, "but I appear to have taught you nothing."

* * *

_He'd been braced for the impact of the water's coldness but it was still a shock to the system, nerve endings alighting and shrinking back from the sensation as he was completely submerged beneath the lake's frozen surface._

_Knowing that time was against him, the startlingly-low temperature robbing him of oxygen faster, he opened his eyes and looked around in the bleak murkiness, the underwater area dark due to the layer of ice over the top of it. He found Lelouch, however, unconscious and slowly sinking. He hadn't tried to swim at all – he must have simply taken in a lungful of water when the ice broke beneath him._

_Suzaku flipped himself over and pushed off against the ice, driving himself towards Lelouch, having to swim the last few feet in order to grab his wrist and drag his limp form towards himself. He got a better grip on Lelouch around his chest and kicked upwards, pulling them both towards the surface with all of his strength, his taxed lungs beginning to scream for oxygen, his whole body aching, his vision beginning to darken even as the light from the surface grew nearer and brighter—_

Suzaku leaned his forehead against the shower wall, taking a break from being submerged under the hot powerful stream. He'd been sent to have a long hot shower immediately on their arrival back to the resort to get himself warmed up. Lelouch was in a far worse way than him, having lapsed back into unconsciousness in the car – he was being tended to out in the main part of the First Aid wing whilst Suzaku showered in the bathroom area.

Even as his skin reacted delightedly to the gush of hot water raining down on it, Suzaku was strangely devoid of feeling within. Lelouch was alive, but… but things could so easily be different. He had almost not revived, and if… Suzaku hadn't been there at all, no-one would have saved him. He'd have drowned and claimed that frozen lake as his grave.

And when Suzaku thought that Lloyd almost hadn't let him come—

No. He couldn't blame Lloyd. After all, he _had_ allowed him the time off to come – grudgingly, perhaps, but nonetheless, he had relented. Perhaps Rivalz and Suzaku himself were to blame – they should have made sure that Lelouch was with them at all times. If they'd been close to him, then even if the ice had broken, one of them could have grabbed hold of him and stopped him falling in. Or maybe it was the teachers, for making them cross the ice in the first place. Or maybe it was the rest of the class, for not being careful to not crack the ice. Or maybe it was _Lelouch_, for falling in at all.

Suzaku stood beneath the shower a moment more, rinsing out the last of the torturous 'What Ifs', before shutting it off and stepping out into the small steamy bathroom; taking the towel off the radiated rail and wrapping it around himself. They'd left dry clothes for him, so he quickly towelled off and reached for them. The material beneath his fingers was soft, but thick, familiar…

Japanese.

Dark blue hakama. Crisp white kimono. He'd spent half his time dressed like this when he was a child, but since Britannia's occupation of Japan… Well, there'd certainly been a repression of Japanese culture under the re-establishment of the country as "Area 11", but although some people still wore traditional garments like this, Suzaku hadn't had a chance to since joining the army.

He dressed in front of the mirror and looked at himself in silence. It was… strange. He hadn't seen himself dressed like this since he was ten. In fact, he'd been dressed like this…

…the day he had met Lelouch.

How different they had looked then. Lelouch hadn't been wearing royal clothes, but even so, the semi-casual attire had still been so prim and proper. And Suzaku, dressed like this, had looked at him and hated him.

Now he and Lelouch dressed the same – for school, at least. It was all part of his re-branding of himself as an Honorary Britannian. He wore the same school uniform as Britannian students and the same army uniform as Britannian soldiers.

And yet, _this_…

He pulled himself away from his reflection, neatly folded his towel and left the bathroom, carpet soft against his bare feet. A woman – one half of the couple who owned the resort – was out in the main area of the small First Aid wing, making some tea. She, like her husband (and like Suzaku), was Japanese – they seemed to be somewhere in their fifties. Not much of either of them had been seen, their teachers supervising the students in what was, essentially, the run of the place.

She had taken complete charge of Lelouch and Suzaku, however, assuring the teacher who had accompanied them back that she would look after them, at which her husband, having driven to collect the three of them, took him back up to rejoin the other teachers and the rest of the students.

She looked up upon his entrance and smiled at him.

"Come and have some tea to warm yourself up," she said, speaking in Japanese.

He blinked, a little taken aback by the sudden language-switch. He hadn't heard anyone speak Japanese for quite a while. Of course, it was perfectly natural that she'd speak Japanese to him – she could obviously tell that he wasn't Britannian, which was presumably why she'd left these clothes for him, assuming that he would be able to put them on without any difficulty and that he wouldn't be offended.

He was perhaps the first Japanese guest who had been here for a while, despite the fact that it had once been a traditional Japanese hot spring resort.

"Thankyou." He dipped his head in a respectful little bow and sat down at the small two-person table on which she'd laid out the tea – green, in a traditional tea set. She put one of the little cups down in front of him and he wrapped his fingers around it, gratefully sipping at it. "How is Lelouch?" he asked on lowering it, easily slipping back into his native tongue.

"Stable," she replied, taking up her own tea. "He's resting in the other room. I've called a doctor to see him, but I think he'll be alright. He's rather underweight for a boy his age, but he's young. He may have to return to your school a little later than the rest of you, but… I'm certain he'll recover."

She smiled at Suzaku reassuringly and he returned it.

"Good," he murmured over his tea.

She looked at him for a long moment.

"It was a very brave thing you did," she said at length, her voice soft. "He owes you his life."

"He'd have done the same for me," Suzaku replied confidently; then frowned. "He'd probably have drowned us both doing it, though…"

"_You_ could have died saving _him_."

Suzaku gave a shrug.

"I'm a soldier. I've been trained how to handle situations like that."

She nodded slowly.

"I know you're a soldier. I know who you are – you're Genbu Kururugi's son." There was a slight change to her expression, but he couldn't quite put his finger on what about it had altered. "The innocent they tried to frame for the murder of Prince Clovis."

"That's me," Suzaku agreed distractedly, looking at his tea.

"The one Zero saved."

Suzaku looked up at her again.

"You're a supporter of Zero?"

She gave an uneasy shrug.

"It's hard to know who or what to support these days," she sighed. "There may just be another demon beneath Zero's mask, but for the moment… he and the Black Knights seem as though they _care_, at least."

"It's vigilantism."

"As opposed to fascism?"

He looked sharply up at her and she bowed her head.

"I apologise," she said quietly. "That wasn't… that is, I…"

"It's alright."

There was silence between them for another long while. Suzaku finished his tea and rose.

"Can I see Lelouch?" he asked.

"O-of course." She gestured towards the door at the far end of the room. "He's in there. Try not to disturb him, though. He was asleep when I left him."

Suzaku gave a nod and crossed the small room to the door she had motioned to, putting his hand on the handle to open it. On the threshold, however, he paused.

"You know," he said, not looking at her, "…he's my best friend."

He paused. She said nothing. In the end, he simply stepped through into the adjacent room and let the door swing silently shut behind him.

The room was very small, but accommodating enough. The curtains were drawn but there was a small lamp, switched on, sitting on the tiny bedside table, illuminating the area immediately around it. There was nothing else in the room but for the bed and the fold-up chair placed next to it.

Suzaku went quietly to the bedside and lowered himself into the chair. Lelouch slept soundly within the bed, nestled under the covers and with another blanket put on over the top of the sheets; he, too, had been put in Japanese clothing in place of his own wet things, although, from what Suzaku could see, the material was softer and a little thinner so that he wouldn't be uncomfortable.

He suddenly seemed very small, perhaps because he was swamped underneath all that material – it was as though Suzaku was looking down at a Lelouch suddenly restored to ten years of age again, just as he had seen in himself before the mirror.

His hair had dried oddly – presumably it had been rubbed dry before he had been put into the bed, for now it lay in lots of unruly little flicks and spikes all around his pale face. Suzaku reached out to brush a stray strand from his cheek, the backs of his fingers lingering on Lelouch's skin a little longer than necessary.

It had been only the barest of touches, but Lelouch stirred, his eyes flickering open a little. He turned his head on the pillow to look at Suzaku and the bright violet of his eyes gleamed brightly beneath his thick, lowered lashes.

He smiled weakly.

"Hello, Lelouch," Suzaku greeted him softly, sliding back into English.

"Hello, Suzaku," Lelouch replied; his voice was very faint, even a little hoarse, but the warmness was there. He started to move under the sheets, grimacing as he tried to raise himself; Suzaku stood swiftly, pushing him gently back down.

"No, lie down," he told him quietly. "Lelouch, you're sick. You have to rest, okay?"

Lelouch didn't resist, but there was further movement under the sheets, and then he managed to get his hand out from beneath the layers of blankets, extending his pale, thin fingers out towards Suzaku – who took them between his own palms as he sank back into his seat.

"You're going to be okay," he went on, feeling that Lelouch's hand was reassuringly warm.

Lelouch gave a tiny, faint nod and looked up at the ceiling.

"I know," he said. "Thanks… to you."

Suzaku shot him a little grin.

"You know I'd never let anything happen to you."

"Mm." Lelouch smiled again, but this time it was aimed at the ceiling. "You're a… wonderful person…"

Suzaku's own smile faded slightly; he said nothing, however, and simply dipped his head. A few tears hit the wide white sleeves of his kimono—

But he looked up again when Lelouch's fingers wrapped around the hand cradled beneath them and gave a tight squeeze. The Britannian boy was looking at him again, and his smile was brighter than before, matching the brilliant glimmer of his beautiful eyes.

"Don't let go, Suzaku," he said.

(And later, as Suzaku left him to sleep, he actually smirked and murmured, "Hey, Suzaku – looks like I got out of going on the walk after all…".)

* * *

Suzaku was fit to return to Ashford Academy the following day with the rest of the class (most of whom now flocked around him, regarding him a hero, amongst other things), but Lelouch didn't return for a week. He called Nunnally every day to assure her that he was getting better, and called Suzaku too, even getting him to go and eat dinner with his sister a few times to make sure that she didn't get too lonely.

When he _did_ make his "triumphant return", however, it was surprising to note that none seemed more pleased to see him than Milly, who instantly descended upon him the moment he set foot in the Student Council room.

"Why, Mr Vice-President," she cackled, "how _good_ of you to join us! And you're _just_ in time to help us organise the next big event on our busy, busy calendar!"

"Which would be…?" Lelouch asked wearily, disentangling her from where she was hanging persistently around his neck.

"A Hero Festival!" Milly announced, bounding away to grab one of the posters she'd had printed; she got Shirley to help her roll it out and hold it up. "In honour of Suzaku saving your scrawny ass." The President gave a mockingly-scornful shake of her head. "See what happens when I'm not there to supervise you, Lelouch?"

"How do you know I didn't try to drown myself on purpose to get away from you, Ms President?" Lelouch replied scathingly.

Milly laughed.

"Oh, Lelouch," she sighed, "that's not going to fly. There's _no way_ you'd go to so much effort just to rid yourself of me."

Lelouch rolled his eyes and went to sit between Suzaku and Rivalz.

"And does the hero approve?" he asked loftily of Suzaku (while Milly was distracted harassing Shirley).

"Well… there's no need for it, I think," Suzaku replied. "It's kind of embarrassing that she's making such a big deal out of it."

Lelouch nodded in understanding.

"Yes, we _all_ wish that Ms President wouldn't do these things," he agreed flatly.

"Except Ms President," Rivalz muttered.

"Oh, and by the way," Milly put in, leaning over the desk suddenly towards the three of them; her gleaming gaze focused on Lelouch. "…The Hero Festival is tomorrow."

* * *

"There you are."

Lelouch looked up from where he was knelt on the storeroom floor, rummaging through a box of fireworks; he acknowledged Suzaku's presence with a small nod and went back to his prior occupation.

"You say that as though _I'm_ the one hiding," he said absently, digging out a rocket and inspecting it.

Suzaku flinched jokingly as he stopped next to him.

"How do you know I wasn't sent to find you?" he asked.

"The festival is in honour of you, Suzaku. Even Milly won't make you do her bidding today. Which… is more than I can say for me." Lelouch glanced up at Suzaku, scowling. "Come to think of it, it's really very unfair. _I'm_ the one who almost drowned, yet _I'm_ the one down on my knees sorting out fireworks."

Suzaku laughed.

"Want me to help?"

"Oh, it's okay. I'm almost done. Milly sent me to get the rockets and there are only about seven or eight in here, I think. They're left over from that Chinese New Year-themed festival she threw – some idiot put everything that was left all in one box down here. A _wooden_ box, I might add." Lelouch put the rocket he'd pulled out down on the concrete floor next to the other six he'd already salvaged. "Seriously, this should have been sorted yesterday, or this morning at least, instead of sending me to get them ten minutes before they're scheduled to go off…"

"Yeah, I wondered where you'd gone. The last I saw you, you were with Rivalz in the kitchen."

"_Supervising_ Rivalz, you mean." Lelouch rolled his eyes. "Still, he's not as bad as Shirley… Where's Nunnally?"

"She's with some girls from her class. She seems to be having a good time. So does everyone, actually. I think pretty much the whole student body is out there – I even saw Jason Kingsley."

"Oh, _everyone_ loves Milly's crazy parties."

"Except you."

"And you," Lelouch countered calmly, looking up at Suzaku once more. "That's why you're down here, isn't it? Tired of them all fawning over you?"

"…A little."

Lelouch gave a little snort and dug to the bottom of the box.

"Well," Suzaku went on quickly, "it's not that I don't appreciate everything Milly has done, and I'm very happy that everyone is glad that I was able to save you, but it's all so…"

"Fake."

"I was going to say 'overwhelming'…"

Lelouch surfaced from the box empty-handed, put the lid back on and got up, dusting off his hands.

"And is that what you _meant_?" he asked, turning to Suzaku.

Suzaku looked at him hopelessly.

"Lelouch, I don't know what you want me to say," he said, shaking his head. "You were angry when they were hostile to me – now you're angry because they're being nice to me."

"Don't be so naïve. You know as well as I do that they're only flocking round you because you saved my life. That's what people do. You proved your worth on a personal level – Suzaku Kururugi, to them, is a "good Eleven". You still don't represent the Japanese to them, and you still don't represent yourself as their equal."

"I _know_ that," Suzaku replied irritably. "Don't be so difficult, Lelouch. You know I didn't even _want_ Milly to make a big deal of it."

Lelouch gave a little sigh.

"I know, I know… Come on, seeing as you're down here, you can help me carry these damned rockets…"

Suzaku gave a nod; but as Lelouch turned away, he grasped at his wrist.

"Lelouch," he said, as the Britannian boy turned back to him in surprise, "you're… you're okay, aren't you?"

Lelouch smiled.

"I'm much better than okay," he replied. "I still have a bit of a cough – the doctor said it might be a while before my lungs are as strong as they were before—"

"How is that "much better than okay"?" Suzaku interrupted incredulously.

"Because…" Lelouch grinned. "I don't have to do Physical Education for the next six weeks. I have a signed doctor's note exempting me from it."

"Lelouch, you never went anyway."

"I know, but now I don't have to spend the entire hour hiding from the teacher." Lelouch tilted his head thoughtfully. "Honestly, sometimes I think I got just as much exercise _not_ going to Physical Education…"

Suzaku only smiled.

"Well, I'm glad that you're alright," he said.

Lelouch's expression faded to a more serious one.

"Because of _you_," he said quietly. "Rivalz said you had to revive me. You didn't _even_ save me, Suzaku – you brought me back from the dead."

"What choice did I have?" Suzaku's grasp on Lelouch's wrist tightened. "It was either that, or… or lose you again."

"I'm glad you were forced into such dire straits – I and my continued campaign to avoid enforced physical activity thank you."

"Don't joke about it." Suzaku released Lelouch's wrist in favour of grasping his thin shoulders. "When you went under that ice, I just… it didn't even seem real, it was like… it was some horrible figment of my imagination, reminding me that I'd lost you the first time… And then Shirley screamed and it made me realise that it _was_ real, and everyone… everyone just _stood_ there—"

"So _you_ had to save me." Lelouch smiled at him. "As you've saved me before. You really ought to be my knight, Suzaku."

Suzaku said nothing, only exhaled deeply and sank forwards, resting his forehead against Lelouch's and closing his eyes.

"Thankyou for saving me, Suzaku," Lelouch murmured, his voice soft and lulling. "I owe you my life."

"You're welcome," Suzaku replied, his voice equally hushed.

After a long moment of standing still, their fringes flush against one another, Suzaku leaned his head back again, opening his jade eyes very slowly to look at Lelouch.

Those big violet eyes pierced him again, as they had in the wasteland and as they had the night they'd discussed the politics of Britannians and Japanese sharing beds.

Lelouch leaned towards him again to close the gap, lowering his lashes, tilting his head, and Suzaku—

"Lelouch!"

"Lulu, where are you? Milly said she wants the fireworks sometime this century! Um, entirely her phrasing!"

"The fireworks…" Suzaku was the one to abort the action this time, taking his hands off Lelouch's shoulders. "I-I'll get them…"

Lelouch seemed equally flustered, but by the time Suzaku had picked up the rockets and Rivalz and Shirley had located them, the cool façade was firmly back in place, his slightly put out expression replaced by his oft-employed lazy smile.

"Should have known Milly would call in the cavalry," he said blandly. "Though you're both wasting your time – I already roped someone into carrying the fireworks for me."

He gestured to Suzaku, who joined them with the seven rockets in his arms.

"Is that all there was?" Rivalz asked. "I thought there were more left over than that…"

Lelouch shrugged. Shirley took his arm and tugged at it.

"Come on, Lulu," she said, pulling him across the storeroom. "Ms President says she has another job for you…"

Rivalz stuck his hands in his pockets and looked at Suzaku as Shirley spirited Lelouch away as fast as he would reluctantly allow her to.

"So," Rivalz drawled, "nothing's changed."

Suzaku gave a nod.

"Yeah," he replied absently. "Nothing's changed."

—

(Milly's "job" had been attempting to persuade Lelouch to swap school uniforms with her – a gimmick, she'd said, something fun to add a little sparkle to their joint President-and-Vice-President-of-the-Student-Council stint of announcing the fireworks in Suzaku's honour.

Lelouch refused, Shirley giggled but wouldn't help Milly get him into the female Ashford uniform by force, Kallen rolled her eyes in irritation and Nina blushed and averted her gaze.

In the end, though she did make a point of wrestling with him for a bit trying to get his jacket off, Milly gave up and resigned to doing the announcement in her own clothes – but vowed, as Lelouch stalked indignantly away, that she'd see him in a skirt in front of the entire Ashford Academy student body yet.)

* * *

And that was called the WORST. SCHOOL TRIP. EVER.

I'm going to say it straight off, as I said to my beta-reader:

I am perfectly aware that this chapter is both hilariously-fangirly and, frankly, just plain ridiculous. I took a lot of liberties with the canon, it's pretty OTT in places and Suzaku cries his freaking eyes out.

However… it was planned. I intended to write it like this. And, despite how silly it is, I am pleased with how it came out. Overall, it does what I want it to.

I hope you enjoyed it – if nothing else, it was a break from emo/suicidal!Suzaku and amnesiac/drug-addict!Lelouch, right? Tee hee. :)

(FYI, the ice thing? Totally foreshadowed in the first chapter. It's only one line – kind of tenuous, really, but it's there. I _said_ it was planned.)

Oh, and the _Romeo and Juliet_ thing. Heh heh, I can't help throwing in these literature references. At least I know I'm not wasting my money on that English Literature degree – I've clearly learned _something_!

(Besides, I just adore _Romeo and Juliet_. It's my favourite Shakespeare play – and I guess, at this point in the _Code Geass_ canon, Lelouch and Suzaku are somewhat comparable to _Romeo and Juliet_ in that they don't have a problem with one another despite their birth, but their houses/countries really, really do and make it so that the pair of them can't just be friends and get the hell on with their lives. Also, the line Lelouch quoted – "A plague on both your houses!", originally spoken by Mercutio – is kind of applicable to the way Lelouch and Suzaku F-in-the-A every country going towards the end of R2, their own included… Oh, and they both "die". Or fake dying. Whatever.)

Speaking of comparing _Code Geass_ to things that aren't really anything like it, for those of you familiar with the Broadway/West End musical _Wicked_… Ever noticed the parallels between it and the actual canon storyline of _Code Geass_? [Warning: Spoilers for _Wicked_ ahead] Here's the run-down: Main character (Lelouch/Elphaba) has a long-deceased mother, a bastard of a father, a younger sister in a wheelchair and severe issues with just how sucky the world is; things start to look up when main character is granted/discovers power which allows for getting out there and changing the world for the better, only it doesn't last long and soon everything goes to Hell again, making a hatred symbol out of main character, which leads them to plan/fake own death for the sake of world peace or something like that. Meanwhile, best friend of main character (Suzaku/Glinda) starts out as a jerk, turns very nice, believes that main character has betrayed them and goes back to being a jerk again, before finally reconciling with main character at the end right before they (supposedly) die; best friend of main character also has more costumes and titles than any other character. Oh, and the little sister in a wheelchair (Nunnally/Nessa) starts out as timid and admiring of older sibling, then becomes some kind of political leader and turns into a bitch, right before overcoming handicap (though while Nessa manages to get out of her chair and walk, something never managed by Nunnally, she also gets a whole house dropped on her, so… maybe she should have just stayed in the wheelchair. O.o)

Lelouch's father never turned out to be the Wizard of Oz, though. That would have been awesome.

ANYWAY… wow, that's along AN, and it was a long chapter already…

I'm sorry if your eyes hurt now.

Next chapter: The thrilling second half of Lelouch and Suzaku's silly-schoolgirly-crush-shenanigans, in which they hopefully won't be conveniently interrupted every time they try to swap saliva!

Eh, life's tough.

RobinRocks

xXx


	7. Inversion: Pt II

ZOMG! Finally! An update! I know, I know, it's been almost (exactly) two months…! I even missed updating for Suzaku's birthday (10th July) by practically a whole month… :(

Ahahaha, I don't like to blame my beta-reader, but it _was_ her fault. This chapter has actually been written for quite a while, but she let silly things like Real Life get in the way of betaing it. It's alright. I've already filed a formal complaint about the service. I'm sure she'll be boiled in hot lead or something. ;)

(She did do a good job betaing it though, and made me a _Ghost in the Machine_-themed icon for my profile, so all is forgiven. Mostly.)

Thankyou to all who reviewed: **Nusku, realityfling18, LacuStellar, Neo Diji, Piperme, CatalunaRei, Poisoned-Inkwell, teito13, SeraphChronoMage, SutaakiHitori, XhadowKiss, KarimaTinCan, Star Jinin, Patet, KuroitsukiNoMai, BakayaroManiac, Master Elora Dannan, The Mrs Black, Aria DC al Fine, Arkaham, Narroch, Diana Prince, Deus3xMachina, Joey, abls, PikaNecoMico, Destiny Lot, stuckinabottle, 4udball, Tainted Ink and Paper, purechidori, RedGoldX3, Xeno, Shinigami966890, InfidelPumpkin, Empty Melodies, Twillightfairy** and **Dark Reborn**!

And now, to the thrilling second half of this double-chapter-procrastination detailing Lelouch and Suzaku's silly-schoolgirly-crush-shenangians!

Yayz!

(BTW, just as a warning: This chapter is almost twenty-one-thousand words, so… yeah, not the wisest choice of slice-of-fanfic to serve as your _own_ procrastination if you have more important things to do…)

The Ghost in the Machine

Inversion – Pt II

"Can't sleep?"

C.C. leaned over him, the metal buckle of the leather restraining strap hanging from her clothing swinging dangerously close to his face. He batted it away irritably and glared up at her.

"I might find it easier to sleep if _you_ weren't skulking around the room at this time of night," he snapped.

C.C. sighed.

"What else am I supposed to do?" she asked morosely, straightening again. "You won't let me go out."

"You _know_ why you can't go out," Lelouch replied tersely, "but even if you _weren't_ on Britannia's Most Wanted list, it's 3am." He gave an irritated sigh of his own and sat up a little. "_Why_ you sleep all day is beyond me. It's not my fault that you're bored now – I shouldn't have to entertain you. I've been in school all day, and I have school tomorrow, so _go away_ and leave me alone."

"I only came over here because I could see that you were already awake," C.C. said airily. "_I_ didn't wake you up."

"You're _keeping_ me awake now."

C.C. tilted her head, smiling at him.

"I don't think _I'm_ the one keeping you awake," she murmured.

His violet eyes narrowed.

"And what's _that_ supposed to mean?" he demanded, sitting up properly.

"Oh, the way you've been behaving these last few days," C.C. said, sinking into a sitting position on the edge of his bed – he drew up his knees to accommodate for her, though shot her an annoyed look. "It's amusing, almost. I've seen a very strange little smile on your face. You only seem to do it when you think no-one is watching you; it looks almost – dare I say it – _happy_. Oh, but it doesn't last long. You've also been scowling a lot more than usual. Your mood swings are far more frequent than they usually are."

"That doesn't mean anything!" Lelouch protested.

"Well, you might be pregnant."

Lelouch gave a pained little groan, resting the back of his head against the headboard.

"When did _you_ get a sense of humour, C.C.?" he muttered blackly.

"Hm?" Her gold eyes gleamed at him. "Oh, well, yes, I suppose it _was_ a joke. You _are_ a virgin, after all."

Lelouch kicked her off the bed.

"It's ridiculous of you to make an assumption like that," he snapped. "It's none of your business. Now go away and let me sleep."

C.C. snorted as she rose again, watching him lie down with his back to her.

"It's no wonder, if _that's_ how you treat a lady," she said coldly.

"You're no lady, witch."

"Well, I suppose that means that it's not _me_, then."

"It means that _what_ isn't you?"

"The person that you're in love with."

Lelouch bolted upright again, turning to fix that murderous glare on her once more.

"I'm not _in love_ with anyone," he snapped. "Don't be so stupid! A couple of bad moods and you—"

"Oh, Lelouch," C.C. sighed impatiently. "My Geass made people fall in love with me. Even if it was fabricated, if nothing else, I know… the "symptoms", shall we say?"

"I'm not in love."

"Well, there's someone you like."

"No, there isn't."

"Why are you denying it?"

"Because you're wrong."

"Oh, don't be such a boy about it."

Lelouch gave an irritated snort.

"Are you implying that boys are insensitive to love? Because that's not true. Look at Romeo – _he_ loved and he ended up _dead_."

"I was alive before Shakespeare wrote that play," C.C. replied curtly. "But it's alright to love, Lelouch. That's what humans do. They pursue happiness – is that not correct?"

"I'm not pursuing my own happiness," Lelouch said shortly. "I'm pursuing a world that will enhance Nunnally's."

C.C. gave another sigh.

"I might have known you'd be like this about it. I forget that you're just a little boy sometimes…"

"I'm _seventeen_!"

She smiled at him over her shoulder.

"You still have a long way to go to catch up to me," she said.

"I don't _want_ to catch up to you," Lelouch replied icily. "Now go _away_."

C.C. didn't say anything else, but simply collapsed backwards again, sprawling horizontally across the bed.

"_C.C._!" Lelouch lunged towards her. "Stop being such a nuisance!"

"Hm?" C.C. blinked up at him; he was leaning right over her, his hands planted at either side of her shoulders. "…Have you ever kissed anyone, Lelouch?"

He faltered.

"What does _that_ have to do with anything?" he spat.

She shrugged.

"You seem to be quite popular with several of the female students in this school."

"So?"

"Does that mean that you haven't?"

"For god's sake, C.C., _why_ are you doing this?" Lelouch moaned irritably. "What does it matter?"

"It doesn't – but you're different from everyone else I've ever made a contract with," C.C. said simply, looking away towards the wall.

"How?"

"I don't know. That's why you interest me."

"That doesn't make any sense."

"Neither do you."

He blinked at her; then lifted his weight from his hands, kneeling back.

"That's a rather redundant comeback," he snorted.

"I suppose it is," C.C. agreed blandly, still lying on her back on the bedsheets, "but I say it only because you come across as somewhat paradoxical – or, at least, hypocritical of your own ideals."

"How so?" he asked acidly.

"Well, you make the excuse for your campaign of attempting to crush Britannia by rallying the Japanese members of the Black Knights to fight for their freedom from oppression – that is, you persuade them to lay their lives on the line for _your_ cause by making them believe that _you_ believe that it is wrong for Britannia to have taken over Japan in their first place and all but annihilated its culture and way of life. In that respect, it is a pretence of war; but _you_, Lelouch… that is not your true reason for fighting."

"Britannia _was_ wrong for taking over Japan!" Lelouch said indignantly.

"Mm, but Japan is not the only country Britannia has ever occupied. Japan is Area Eleven – there are ten more areas which were taken before it, and there are areas up into the teens. Britannia was no more right in taking over any of those, but you have made the Japanese your allies simply because you and your sister happen to be in Japan." C.C. slowly turned her amber gaze back up towards him. "Don't you think that rather undermines your entire gospel? And… even if that wasn't the case, if Japan was in fact the _only_ country that Britannia had taken over, it wouldn't make it any different. Liberating Japan is only a vehicle for you, Lelouch – a scapegoat for acquiring manpower. What you want, _more_ than the freedom of Japan, is the destruction of Britannia. Is it right to battle for the freedom of one country simply so that you can destroy another?"

"I didn't ask you for your opinion, witch," Lelouch said in a hard voice.

"That is not my opinion," C.C. murmured, sitting up and turning her doll-like face towards his. "Those are simply the facts. I expect you wouldn't care very much for my opinion."

"…Do you even _have_ one?"

C.C. shrugged.

"Not really," she decided eventually. "In return for a simple promise, I gave you Geass – the Power of Kings. What you do with it… has nothing to do with me."

"Huh." He gave an offish shrug of his own. "I was under the impression that we were accomplices."

"Only when it suits you, it seems."

"More like when it suits _you_."

"Of course." She leaned in suddenly towards him, taking him so much by surprise that he didn't have time to duck back out of her reach, and kissed him on the mouth; he went completely rigid, not pulling away, apparently far too shocked by her sudden devious manoeuvre.

She gently put her hands to the sides of his face as she broke the kiss; remaining near, speaking against his lips:

"Are you afraid of closeness, Lelouch?" she whispered, her honey-coloured eyes arresting his own with almost a ferocity. "Do you hate the thought of letting down your defensive barriers for even just a moment and letting someone – _anyone_ – in?"

"You conclude that simply because I didn't react?" he replied icily, moving his face back from hers as much as her hands would allow.

"It's not that." She shook her head a little, her green fringe swaying across her forehead, the dull crimson hue of her Geass symbol flashing between the fronds. "It's the way you are with everyone. But for your sister… you keep everyone, even your friends, as far from you as you can. You don't understand the mechanics of human relationships, nor do you want to. That is what I conclude."

"You're no different, C.C.," Lelouch said in a low voice.

"Yes, I am. I understand all those things – I simply no longer care for them. That is not true for you. You will simply not _allow_ yourself to care for them."

"Why am I getting love-life advice from _you_, of all people?" Lelouch snapped, pulling his head free from her grip and shaking it. "What made you bring all this up? Why did you _kiss_ me?"

"I was stealing your first kiss, Lelouch."

"That—"

"Of course, please don't get the wrong message," C.C. went on airily. "I have no interest in you sexually. You're a little boy and I, no matter how I appear, am really a very, very old woman. I looked this way before you were even born. I looked this way one hundred years ago. And when I think that you are only seventeen…" She suddenly turned her gleaming gold gaze upon him again. "In fact, I may as well confess something: Prior to what you would regard as our first meeting, I had seen you before."

Lelouch blinked, taken aback.

"Wh-where? _When_?"

"Oh, it was years ago. Here – in Japan. You were very young." She smiled a little. "And you were with that boy."

"…You mean Suzaku."

"Mm." She tilted her head. "The one that saved you from drowning."

"Suzaku," Lelouch said again.

"I know what his name is. I'm very grateful to him – it would have been such a bother if you'd died." C.C. regarded the banished prince for a long moment. "…It's him, isn't it? He's the one you love. How ironic that he's Japanese, yet fights for Britannia—"

"Shut _up_, C.C.!" Lelouch spat. "He's just my friend – my _best_ friend, but—"

"Oh, are we back to denying it?"

"I never _admitted_ it!"

"You didn't need to." C.C. swung her legs off the side of the bed and stood again. "So… did I actually steal your first kiss?"

He simply shot her a sulky look; she gave a satisfied little nod.

"I don't know whether I'm disappointed or not," she murmured.

"I don't care," Lelouch bit out, flopping back to the mattress and pulling the sheets back over himself.

"I expect you don't," C.C. agreed absently, twisting her fingers together behind her back and wandering away across the room. "Either way…" She smiled pleasantly at him over her shoulder. "…You turning out to be gay explains a _lot_."

* * *

[Honestly, he thought it unfair of C.C. to label him as some insensitive wretch desperately trying to fight off his own emotions. Even if it _was_ true that he preferred to keep even people like his friends – Shirley, Milly, Rivalz – at arm's length, it had a lot to do with the fact that he simply wasn't a clingy kind of person.

Of course, Nunnally was different. She was his sister. She was all he had left of a world he could never go back to, even if he wanted to. Or, at least, she _had_ been—

Until Suzaku came back.

Suzaku Kururugi. That boy. Japanese. Eleven. Honorary Britannian.

(And in his eyes the memories of a world that Lelouch had thought Britannia had torn down for good.)

Suzaku, too, was different. Just as he stood out amongst the students of Ashford Academy as the only "Eleven", he stood out to Lelouch amongst them too, not for his birth, but for the fact that he was a small sliver of familiarity in a world that was still, in many respects, all too alien. When Lelouch looked at Shirley or Milly or Rivalz, he saw the new order he had been integrated into, the carefree life of a high school student, the charade of Lelouch Lamperouge, the Vice-President of the Student Council and Milly's favourite victim and all-round no-hoper at any and all strenuous activity.

When he looked at Suzaku, he saw that summer, just the three of them, consoling each other beneath the wet, wrinkled wings of new friendship even as their countries readied themselves for war.

Suzaku brought back the world.

He thought of their kiss. He thought of awakening in that tiny First Aid room and seeing him sitting there, smiling at him. He thought of him pulling off that helmet, revealing himself to be the boy he hadn't seen in seven years.

They were best friends. They had saved each other's lives. They had stood together in the wasteland, at what seemed like the very edge of the Earth, and Suzaku had been witness to Lelouch's vow to destroy Britannia.

He thought it unfair of C.C. to propose that he didn't understand the mechanics of human relationships, but, in the end, maybe it didn't matter. He wasn't out to make a machine of it.

As long as it worked, he didn't care.]

* * *

"Are you cutting class again?" Suzaku asked, stepping neatly in front of Lelouch as the violet-eyed boy swanned off down the corridor in quite the opposite direction to the Maths classroom.

"That's such a strong way of putting it," Lelouch murmured, taking note of the way Suzaku was walking backwards to accommodate for the fact that _he_ hadn't stopped making his getaway.

"The truth is often a harsh thing, right?"

"How poetic." Lelouch arched an eyebrow. "Suzaku, you're going to trip over something in a minute."

"Not if I start walking in the correct direction." The young soldier did indeed change the direction of his pace, planting his hands against Lelouch's shoulders and pushing _him_ backwards instead. "Come on, you can't keep skipping like this…"

"_Suzaku_…!" Lelouch stumbled several steps backwards, but then righted himself, surprisingly resilient to being shepherded back the way he had just come. "Cut it out! I'm not going to Maths – I didn't do the homework."

"Well, then you deserve the detention."

"Oh, don't make me laugh." Lelouch gave a sudden squirm, freeing himself from Suzaku's grip by taking him by surprise, and side-stepped him. "I bet you didn't do it either, you masochist."

"I didn't have time last night. Army stuff."

"Well, I have no interest in being your detention buddy." Lelouch gave him an elegant little wave of his fingers. "See you."

"Lelouch…" Suzaku gave an exasperated sigh, turning to watch Lelouch pick up his escape right where he had left off. "Surely the punishment for skipping the class altogether will be _worse_ than the one for not doing your homework. Besides, it's not like this is a one-time thing, either…"

"Oh, they won't find me."

"Lelouch, _everyone_ knows you hide on the roof."

"I have a new hiding-place, for your information." Lelouch glanced back at Suzaku, his eyes gleaming. "Want to come see it?"

"No," Suzaku ground out. "I'm going to Maths."

Lelouch shrugged and looked away again.

"Suit yourself," he said flatly. "You'd better hurry up, though, or you'll be late."

Suzaku gave a snort, watching him go, with half a mind to chase him, grab him by the scruff of his neck and _drag_ him to Maths—

Without stopping, without turning around, Lelouch suddenly slipped his right hand behind his back, where Suzaku could plainly see it, and gave a small tug on the hem of his school jacket.

Suzaku blinked. It was such a little, insignificant movement, unnoticeable by anyone who might walk past, but to Suzaku, who recognised it as one of the many silent signs in the language he and Lelouch had grafted out of mere motion, it held the meaning of two very specific words:

_Follow me._

Lelouch didn't look at him; simply dropped his hand to his side again and continued walking away. Suzaku stood where he was, torn. He didn't particularly want to skip class, not with the amount of lessons he'd missed already due to army duties, nor did he want Lelouch to get the impression that he was at his beck and call, but… he couldn't deny that there was something very alluring about the invitation. Lelouch _wanted_ him to follow him – that was why he'd resorted to the childish sign-language. It was a beautiful day outside, and skipping class to skulk off with Lelouch was a far more appealing option than going to Maths…

"Why, hello, Suzaku," Lelouch said pleasantly as Suzaku caught him up. "How nice of you to join me."

"You _have_ to go to every class tomorrow if I come with you now," Suzaku replied stiffly.

"Bargaining? Is it not enough for you to simply be in my company?"

"_Lelouch_."

"Alright, alright." Lelouch rolled his eyes. "I'll go to every class, if it makes you happy. I can't promise that I won't fall asleep, though."

"If you do, I'll jab you with my compass."

Lelouch gave a mock groan of disgust.

"They shouldn't let soldiers in here," he muttered, though he was smiling. "You're all the same, thinking everything can be solved by jabbing this or blowing up that…"

"At least we don't resort to trying to drown ourselves to get out of a little eight mile walk," Suzaku replied with a grin.

"No," Lelouch agreed. "Frankly, I think blowing something up might have worked better in that instance…"

"Probably." Suzaku shielded his eyes from the sun as they stepped out into the courtyard around which the school building was constructed. "So where's this new hiding-place of yours?"

"Behind the gym."

Suzaku blinked at him.

"What were _you_ doing behind the _gym_?" he asked in surprise.

"Hiding from the gym teacher."

Suzaku couldn't help but shrug.

"Okay, I guess I can see that…"

"I won't need to use it for a while now," Lelouch said conversationally. "You know, since I got that exemption letter. You guys have to swim and play baseball and run track or whatever, and I get to stand on the side and watch. I don't even have to change out of my uniform. Either way, as you said, it's not exactly a secret that I hide on the roof, so I needed somewhere else to lie low for a while. The roof is _much_ closer, but if I don't use it for a few weeks, I suppose they'll stop checking it every time I don't turn up for a lesson and I can go back there."

Suzaku rubbed at his forehead.

"You… really shouldn't put this much thought into cutting class," he muttered. "Next it'll be a high-tech underground base or something…"

Lelouch glanced at him as they neared the gym, walking along the gravel pathway adjacent to the outdoor tennis courts next to the main building, but said nothing in reply. He glanced around for any passers-by, teachers or otherwise, just as they reached the gym itself; satisfied that there was no-one lurking in wait to shove him into detention, he gave a little tug to Suzaku's sleeve to lead him down the side of the brick building and into the heavy shade cast by the mid-afternoon position of the sun.

The gym had been built right at the back of the school grounds, past even the clubhouse building, with the playing fields, courts and tracks sprawling outwards to the front and sides of it. Around the back of it, on the contrary, was nothing but overgrown trees and shrubbery, part of the unruly wall of greenery which encircled around Ashford Academy like a halo, separating it from the world outside, torn between glamour and ghetto.

"What on _earth_ were you doing crawling around in here?" Suzaku found himself asking as Lelouch pushed back several dense branches of bushes, long grown unkempt, and disappeared between them into the wilderness beyond.

"I told you," Lelouch replied, waiting for Suzaku to join him. "Hiding. Come on." He reached back for Suzaku's hand. "It's only a little way in, but it's all so overgrown…"

"Lelouch." Suzaku took his outstretched hand but gave a little tug on it to make the Britannian boy look back at him. "…What's back here?"

"I'm going to _show_ you," Lelouch replied impatiently. He pulled at Suzaku. "Come _on_."

Suzaku fell silent, allowing Lelouch to lead him on blindly, through plants and grasses and trees which became wilder and greener and lusher, the canopy of interlocked leaves and vines overhead casting a darkness that was somehow still vibrant over this strange, new, out-of-Ashford world.

This wasn't like Lelouch. Lelouch didn't like The Great Outdoors one little bit. He didn't like clambering over rocks and slipping on moss and mud and battling through bushes and ducking under dangerously-low tree branches. When they had been children, he had gone for long walks with Suzaku through the woodlands around the Kururugi Estate, but he had complained the whole way, whining that he was tired and dirty and hungry and that he didn't see why Suzaku couldn't just sit and read a book or something.

Yet this… Lelouch wanted to show him something. It was obvious. He'd wanted Suzaku to follow him, desperately so, because he wanted to show him whatever he'd found out here. This new hiding place of his, buried deep amongst all the things Lelouch hated, was either something wonderful or something terrible.

They crouched low to come beneath a low, thick branch, so alive with leaves that it formed almost a shield for the small but distinct clearing Lelouch now led him into, still clutching at his hand. A break in the natural overhead thatch-work allowed sunlight, pure gold at this time of the day, to stream down onto the grassy floor. The small space was otherwise empty but for three things:

A tall, twisted, gnarled weeping willow tree, impossibly beautiful, with roots like broken springs looping up above the ground before plunging back beneath. The ivy-choked crumbling remains of an old well. And—

"Lelouch…" Suzaku broke from him, letting his bag drop as he crossed the clearing in a few strides. "This is…" He trailed off, running his fingers over the ragged stones of the ancient well, before passing it and going to the other remains situated a little way behind it. These, too, were green with overgrowth, ivy threaded like Christmas tinsel between what was left of the beams and moss clinging possessively to the scattered, crumbling remnants of the bodywork.

"This is a Shinto shrine," Suzaku finished softly, looking at Lelouch across the tiny clearing. "Or… what's left of one, at any rate."

"You know it's not in my nature to defend Britannia," Lelouch replied expressionlessly, "but they didn't do this."

"No, I know." Suzaku patted his palm against the ivy-laced structure. "Looks it fell out of use decades and decades ago. There's hardly anything of it left. I bet no-one even knows it's here."

"We do."

"Mm…" Suzaku was still fascinated by the discovery, circling the remains. "Looks like it was a very small shrine – probably only for offering prayers. Maybe… only a metre or two across, by the looks of it. I can't tell, most of it is gone. I wonder when it was built…"

"I knew you'd want to see it. I just… well, I'm sorry I didn't bring you here sooner."

"When did you find it?"

"A few days before the trip." Lelouch had picked up both bags and crossed to the willow, setting them down against one of the arching roots. "You weren't in at all that week, so I couldn't show you – and then, with the trip…"

"Yeah – you came back a week later than everyone else."

"I…" Lelouch hesitated as he sat down on the grass beneath the shade of the willow. "I was going to tell you about it that night we shared the room, but… well, we ended up talking about other things and it slipped my mind."

"Yeah…" Suzaku glanced up just in time to meet Lelouch's gaze – at which they both quickly averted them, Suzaku returning his attention to the ruined shrine and Lelouch distractedly picking at some grass.

Suzaku scuffed his foot along the ground in front of the time-ravaged structure, daring to sneakily glance back at Lelouch again; but the Britannian boy had preoccupied himself now, carefully plucking several long, sturdy blades of grass and measuring them against one another. The calm, haunting silence of the sheltered little grove fell over the both of them and the space – a dozen or so paces – between them, as delicate yet deliberate as a veil.

Neither of them said a thing – although Suzaku _wanted_ to. It was just that…

The young soldier blinked in surprise as he felt the edge of his shoe scrape against something quite a bit firmer than grass and moss. He tilted his head, trying to push away the overgrown grass with his foot, but it kept sweeping back the moment he yielded the force against it. Sinking into a crouch, he used his hands to rake away the grass, parting it to find a small, rectangular piece of stone, partly sunken into the ground and covered with a thin but persistent layer of moss. He frowned, moving along a little and hunting around in the grass next to the slab, eventually prying back some thick roots of ivy to uncover the corner of another. This one was in worse shape, almost half of it buried beneath the earth, but it was not so heavy with moss, enabling him to see that there was something written on it in faded kanji. He pulled back more grass, trying to read it – he couldn't, too much of it worn away, but it looked as though it might be…

… a _name_.

"Lelouch," Suzaku said, standing and sharply shattering the silence, "I think there are graves here."

Lelouch shrugged, busy with his grass – it looked as though he was knotting them all together, making one long string.

"We're not disturbing them," he replied. "Come over here, if it bothers you so much."

Suzaku moved away from the slabs quickly, realising that, if they _were_ graves, he'd probably been standing on them; he came across the clearing and stepped out of the sun, joining Lelouch underneath the willow.

"This place is amazing," he murmured, looking up at the twisted branches of the tree in awe. "I can't believe no-one knows it's here…"

"_We_ do," Lelouch said again, still concentrating on his grass.

"Yes." Suzaku looked down at him. "…Thankyou for sharing it with me, Lelouch."

"You probably have more of a right to be here than I do."

"Well… you didn't _have_ to show it to me."

Lelouch gave another shrug, pulling up an additional piece of grass to add to his chain.

"I wish I could bring Nunnally," he murmured, "but I wouldn't be able to get her wheelchair down through all that overgrowth…"

"Yeah, I think Nunnally would like this place," Suzaku agreed. "Well… I could carry her down, if you want. She's not that heavy."

"Maybe."

Noting that Lelouch had suddenly become rather closed up, more interested in braiding grass than in him, Suzaku stepped away from the vast trunk of the tree and leaned over him.

"What are you doing?" he asked

"Be patient," Lelouch replied tartly. "I'm almost done."

Suzaku gave a little sigh and sat down next to him, looking up at the bent boughs of the willow again, enjoying the dappled sunlight bleeding through the leaves and onto his body. He closed his eyes for a long moment, turning his face up towards the warmth; and when he opened them, he found that he couldn't help but settle them on Lelouch, who was still working diligently on his little project. The gold shone on his raven hair, the mottle of shadow and light cast by the leaves made a canvas of his skin – his fingers, slender, nimble, gave gentle but affirmative shape to the thin ribbon of brilliantly-green grass between them as Suzaku watched in fascination.

"There," Lelouch said finally, holding out the grassy cord between the first finger and thumb of each hand; he turned to Suzaku and threaded it around his neck, leaning over to tie it around the back of his uniform jacket collar. On moving back again, he looked at it critically. "Sorry," he said eventually. "It was meant to look like those prayer beads Shinto priests and priestesses wear, but I'm afraid it's not very good…"

Suzaku looked down at it. It really was just a simple grass necklace, but Lelouch had tried to make the beads out of the knots between the blades, setting them very evenly apart. It maybe wasn't as good as Lelouch would have _liked_ it to look, but Suzaku was touched nonetheless.

"I like it," he assured him. "You're spoiling me today – I should give _you_ something…"

"Oh, that's alright," Lelouch replied, rather too quickly; Suzaku could have sworn that he saw a hint of colour come into his pale face, but paid it little heed as he thought.

"I know," he decided eventually, and he reached for his bag and pulled it towards him, opening it. He went through it, looking for a piece of plain paper, eventually finding one wedged into his Geography exercise book.

He laid his book on the grass to make a flat surface, tore off a strip of paper along the top to make as neat a square as he could manage and began to fold it mechanically and meticulously. He was aware of Lelouch leaning over to watch him in interest but didn't raise his eyes towards him.

"Here you are," he said, giving the wings a final tug and holding it out. "It's a crane. They're a symbol of friendship."

Lelouch held his hands out for the crane, letting Suzaku put it into his palms.

"I've seen Nunnally making these," he said after a moment of examining it. "Sayoko taught her."

"Oh." Suzaku's smile faded. Great. So Lelouch was _tripping over_ paper cranes…

"But she's never made one for me," Lelouch went on, perhaps seeing the sudden plummet in Suzaku's sense of being pleased with himself. "Besides, you said they're a symbol of friendship, and you're my friend, so…" The Britannian boy smiled. "Thankyou, Suzaku."

"You're welcome." Suzaku put his Geography book back in his bag. "You know, there's a legend that says if you make one thousand of them, your wish will be granted."

"That must be what Nunnally's doing," Lelouch muttered, reaching for his own bag. "Seriously, what would you _do_ with one thousand paper cranes…?"

"Traditionally they'd be threaded together in sets of forty, so you'd have twenty-five strings. The complete set is called a _senbazuru_."

"But then you'd _still_ have twenty-five bunches of forty cranes," Lelouch pointed out, hunting through his bag for something.

"Well… yeah, I guess so." Suzaku looked at him again. "What are you looking for?"

"Just… ah, there it is." Lelouch pulled out a book and put it on the grass, closing his school bag again.

"What?" Suzaku blinked. "You're just going to _read_?"

"That's what I always do when I skip class."

"But—"

"Didn't you bring something to do?"

"W-well… I guess I could just do the Maths homework, but…"

Suzaku trailed off, rather disgruntled. He hadn't been remotely under the impression that this was going to turn into Quiet Time; instead he'd rather been hoping for the opportunity to just spend some time with his best friend, away from the army and classes and even the rest of the Student Council. Besides, things were… tense between them. Suzaku could feel it – and he was pretty sure that Lelouch could feel it too, as subtle as it was. It wasn't awkwardness; more of an acknowledgement that there were certain things simply hanging in the air, not forgotten but not renewed, either. The fact was that Suzaku had been busy with the Special Engineering Envoy Corps again these past few days and had hardly been in school – he had also missed two Student Council meetings and a "dinner date" with Lelouch and Nunnally.

Frankly, he had not been left alone with Lelouch since that evening in the basement, when he had stumbled across him looking for fireworks – almost a week ago now – and even then they had been interrupted by Rivalz and Shirley.

However, now that the two of them were finally alone, it didn't look as though either of them was about to breach the subject of what had happened between them the _last_ few times they had been alone. Lelouch had opened his book to the page he had marked with a train ticket – he was still gently holding the crane, but seemed to have lost interest in Suzaku himself.

Suzaku distracted himself getting out the Maths homework for the lesson he was missing right now, almost chafing beneath the all-too-obvious discomfiture of the situation. Of course, Lelouch had perfected acting cool, so he didn't seem remotely bothered by the fact that Suzaku hadn't just grabbed him and kissed him to put them both out of their misery, but Suzaku himself got the distinct impression that the other boy, elegant and refined and poised and whatever else, was waiting.

Just waiting.

"Lelouch," Suzaku said finally; he dropped his Maths homework to the grass and reached out, taking Lelouch by the shoulder.

Lelouch lifted his head, turning his face towards the Japanese boy expectantly.

"Yes?" he asked, his voice deceptively calm.

"I…" Suzaku faltered. His fingers flexed around the curve of Lelouch's shoulder. He dropped his gaze, at a complete loss for what to say, how to even begin.

"_What_, Suzaku?" Lelouch pressed, beginning to sound a little impatient.

"What… what book are you reading?" Suzaku winced as he said it, but steadfastly kept his hand on the other boy's shoulder, under the impression that, if he removed it, it would be even more obvious that that hadn't been exactly what he had been intending to say – or, at least, convey.

Lelouch blinked; but if he was disappointed, the emotion didn't show on his face. He flipped the book over to show Suzaku the cover.

"_The Picture of Dorian Gray_," he said blandly. "It's by Oscar Wilde."

"Mm." Suzaku looked hard at the book cover so that he wouldn't have to look at Lelouch. "I've heard of it. Is it good?"

"I suppose. It's essentially about a man who sells his soul in return for ageless beauty."

"Oh."

Suzaku didn't have anything more to say to that. He dared to raise his gaze towards Lelouch – the Britannian boy was looking down at him with all the haughtiness of the ex-prince that he was, his expression plainly demanding "Are you going to kiss me or not, idiot?". Suzaku paused a moment longer, then slowly let his hand drop from Lelouch's shoulder and shrank back from him. Lelouch, who seemed to have drawn closer, perhaps hopefully, gave a barely-perceptible little snort and went back to his book without another word.

Suzaku flopped to the grass on his back, putting his arms up behind his head to make a pillow. After a long moment of staring up at the leaves again, very annoyed with himself, he let his jade eyes slide closed.

"I think I'll just go to sleep," he announced. "I had a late night last night."

"Alright," Lelouch replied absently.

Suzaku scowled, opening one eye again; Lelouch wasn't looking at him, very much immersed in _The Picture of Dorian Gray_. Exhaling deeply, knowing that Lelouch was probably _not_ as ignorant of the fact that his best friend was sulking as he was pretending to be, Suzaku closed his eye again and got more comfortable. He actually had no intention of going to sleep, but it was pleasantly warm, making it nice to just lie here in the silence – and besides, this eliminated the tension he had undoubtedly just heightened. If he pretended to be asleep, there was a reason for the sudden not-talking between them.

A reason apart from the fact that they were both being idiotic, anyway.

He didn't know what the problem was. It wasn't as though they hadn't kissed before. The first time had been so easy, simply just… _happening_ without either of them thinking about it. Suzaku still wasn't quite sure who had instigated it, quite who had tilted their head which way, quite who had been the first to close their eyes, but it had happened without him knowing, or _needing_ to know, any of those things.

The second time… Despite having been the one to break the first kiss, Lelouch had ignited the second. He had kissed Suzaku without warning, perhaps merely out of protest because he said that he wanted their friendship to evolve from what it had been back when they were children. He'd always been one for unpredictable tactics, after all.

The third time they had been interrupted before their mouths could meet – but an almost-kiss was hardly a non-event. If they'd had only a few moments more…

And yet _now_… Suzaku couldn't do it, and it didn't look as though Lelouch was in the mood for employing any more shock tactics, either. He didn't know why, because truthfully, he didn't think Lelouch would reject the advance – in fact, he seemed to _want_ Suzaku to kiss him, but for some reason…

Suzaku couldn't close the gap.

So he lay on his back beneath the sun and amidst the ruins of the Shinto shrine Lelouch had given to him like a gift, with Lelouch's other gift of grass prayer beads threaded around the collar of his school uniform; and found that he was growing drowsy even though he didn't really want to sleep – he wanted to stay awake so that he could appreciate Lelouch only being a foot away from him.

After all, it wasn't too long ago that he'd believed Lelouch dead; and even more recently that he'd almost lost him a second time, having to physically drag him from the greedy, icy clasp of Death.

He was almost asleep, barely able to open his eyes, when he felt Lelouch rest his head on his chest. He battled to open them enough to look at his friend – the Britannian boy had closed the book and put it aside, instead lying down on his side on the grass, using Suzaku's chest as a pillow.

The crane was cradled in his hand.

* * *

It had begun to rain quite heavily by the time the coldness of it woke Suzaku up; he opened his eyes to an unexpected darkness, the clearing dulled by the grey clouds which had drifted overhead. Lelouch stirred too, lifting his head from where it had been resting in the dip between Suzaku's shoulder and collarbone and looking up at what he could see of the sky through the weeping willow's branches.

"Where the hell did this come from?!" Suzaku asked, the question rhetorical but nonetheless incredulous.

"It's been sunny these past few days," Lelouch muttered, sitting up properly and scrabbling for his bag. "It's probably overdue…"

"But it was so nice earlier – how long were we asleep?" Suzaku gave a shake of his head, flicking a few wet strands of hair out of his eyes. "Oh, it doesn't matter. Come on, let's get out of here and inside…"

He jammed his sodden, untouched Maths homework into his bag and stood, slinging it over his shoulder; he took Lelouch by the wrist as he stood too, pulling him forwards a few steps. Lelouch allowed himself to be dragged, but when Suzaku had gotten him almost to the entrance of the clearing, his eyes suddenly widened and he tore his arm loose, turning on his heel and scrambling back towards the willow.

"Lelouch!" Suzaku started after him. "What are you _doing_?!"

"My crane!" Lelouch snatched up the soggy white thing lying amidst the overgrown grass as Suzaku caught him up. "I forgot to pick it up…"

"Will you come _on_?" Suzaku snapped impatiently, grabbing hold of him again. "You shouldn't be out in weather like this."

"As heavy as it is, I don't think I'm going to drown," Lelouch muttered, but he didn't protest to Suzaku clamping onto his arm again and hauling him across the clearing and back out into the overgrowth which acted as gateway between this strange, silent realm and the normal, noisy one of Ashford Academy.

It was as though they, as humans, had outstayed their welcome in a place so dominated by Nature; or, as representatives of a more modern era, were simply too out of place in a tiny pocket of history far older than they. The sun had hidden and the rain came instead to chase them.

They, tainted by the world they _belonged_ in, had been rejected by another world – better, but which could not contain them.

So they returned.

"We can take shelter in the gym," Suzaku said, still clutching at Lelouch as they stepped out from amongst the trees and bushes so well concealing perhaps the one part of Japan reduced to ruin but not to a number.

Lelouch gave a nod, trying to keep up with Suzaku as he pulled him along the wet gravel path running along the side of the gym; he was still clutching the wet paper crane, able to pause and fold it flat enough to put it into his pocket as Suzaku let him go at the doorway of the gym building and went to open the door.

He couldn't open it.

"Great," Suzaku hissed, tugging on the handle again for good measure. "It's locked from the inside. We can't get in."

Lelouch looked at him miserably and said nothing. The rain had picked up, slamming silver into the grounds of Ashford Academy – the pair of them were all but drenched through.

"Come on," Suzaku said irritably, taking Lelouch's wrist again as he passed him. "Standing here isn't doing us any good. We'll have to go to the school building…"

Lelouch looked at the distance between the gym and the main building, looked at the sky, looked at the ground, and then looked at Suzaku.

"Okay, you win," he said expressionlessly. "I wish we'd just gone to Maths."

—

"Isn't this your room?" Lelouch asked suddenly, looking around at the corridor as Suzaku hunted in his wet pocket for his key. "How did we get into the dormitory building?"

"It's connected to the school building by that corridor we just came down – you know, the one by the Science Department."

"Oh." Lelouch gave a little shiver as Suzaku unlocked the door. "I didn't know that…"

"Well, you and Nunnally live in the clubhouse building, right? So it makes sense."

"Mm, but I've been to Rivalz's room before – we went in the front entrance."

"Oh, yeah, that's nearer to the English Department. Either way, it was much quicker to come in here than go to yours." Suzaku opened the door and gestured to Lelouch to go in first. "Come on, we're dripping water all over the floor…"

He followed Lelouch into the bedroom and closed the door behind them, dropping his sodden bag to the floor. Lelouch put his down more carefully and went into his pocket, extracting the wet paper crane.

"I can't believe you went back for that," Suzaku murmured, watching the Britannian boy carefully fold the soggy paper outwards into its proper shape.

"Why wouldn't I have? Do you think I'm so ungrateful?"

"N-no, but… it's just a piece of paper. I could have made you another one."

"I want this one. Besides…" Lelouch put the crane down on Suzaku's dresser to dry out and looked at his friend critically. "_You're_ still wearing that silly grass necklace."

Suzaku touched the thin, wet string of knotted grass hanging around his neck absently and grinned.

"Touché," he said; but his smile faded as he watched Lelouch shiver violently again. He went to him and grasped one of his hands between his own. "God, you're freezing," he went on, his tone becoming more serious. "You'd better have a shower to get your body heat back up."

"Suzaku, I know I fell in a frozen lake, but—"

"Exactly," Suzaku interrupted distractedly, going to his wardrobe. "It's not good for you to be wet and cold like this…" He went through the wardrobe and pulled out a pair of grey jogging pants and a dark green T-shirt, folding them over his arm and holding them out to Lelouch. "Here, you can wear these while your uniform dries. There are towels in the bathroom."

"_Fine_." Lelouch rolled his eyes, unbuttoned and unbuckled his uniform jacket and shrugged it off, leaving him in his wet school shirt. "You can have the rest when I come back," he added coolly, taking the dry clothing.

"That sounds fair," Suzaku replied stoically, picking up his jacket.

Lelouch simply gave another little snort and crossed the room to the en suite bathroom, holding Suzaku's clothes away from his wet body as he shut the door; Suzaku heard him lock it, probably out of habit (if Suzaku couldn't even _kiss_ him, he was hardly going to follow him into the shower to passionately ravage him against the steamy glass or whatever), and, moments later, heard him start the shower up.

He gave a little shudder himself, shaking his wet hair out of his eyes as he went to the radiator. He turned it on and draped Lelouch's soaked uniform jacket over it to dry off, putting his own next to it after taking it off. He unbuttoned his shirt too, peeling the cold, wet cotton away from his skin, and kicked off his trousers, shoes and socks as well, leaving them all to dry. In just his underwear, he went back to the open wardrobe and took out his copper-coloured army uniform, hanging neatly on a wooden hanger, and hooked it over the wardrobe door so that he could inspect it. He was scheduled for a diagnostics feedback session with Lloyd and Cecile later that evening, and although once he got there he'd have to put on his pilot uniform, he had to wear proper attire into the building.

He looked at the rank markings on the right sleeve of the jacket. They were new. He hadn't been a Major for very long. There was talk amongst other soldiers, those who were older, more experienced, or those whom he had surpassed, or simply those who hated him for being an Eleven, about the fact that he had skipped several ranks in being promoted – so many that it was, in fact, almost ridiculous. He'd been a Warrant Officer before this, and, before that, merely a Private.

The talk was mostly assumption that Princess Cornelia, Governor of Area Eleven, had had something to do with it; maybe due to the influence of her younger sister, Vice-Governor Princess Euphemia, who made no secret of the fact that she thought of Suzaku as a friend despite his birth.

It hadn't earned him any fans, but either way, he was a lot more powerful now, almost equal to Cecile in rank.

Still looking at it, he reached up and carefully untied the grass "prayer beads"; turning away and crossing the room, he knotted it again once it was off and hung it from one of the short posts at the headboard of his bed. He glanced up at the window – the world outside had been stained truly grey, the rain coming down harder than ever. It was hard to believe that only a few hours ago – hours? Was it hours? He checked the clock at his bedside and saw that it was almost four in the afternoon – the sun had been valiantly shining, so pleasantly warm that it had lulled him to sleep in that strange, tiny Japan Lelouch had shared with him.

…That was what it had been like. It had been untouched by war, untouched by Britannia, just as Japan had been when Lelouch and Suzaku had first met. Stepping through that overgrowth had been like stepping through the years, battling backwards, until they reached those final days in which they were friends but their countries were not.

He heard the bathroom door unlock and turned just as Lelouch emerged, rubbing his hair dry with a white towel. He was dressed in the clothes Suzaku had lent him, both garments clearly too big for his slender frame.

"Feel better?" Suzaku asked, smiling a little as Lelouch lowered the towel – his damp hair was sticking up in all directions.

"Yeah." Lelouch tried to smooth his hair down. "Do you have a comb?"

"On the dresser." Suzaku headed towards the bathroom himself, passing him. "I'm going to go and have a shower myself. There's room on the radiator for the rest of your clothes."

"Oh. Okay." Lelouch went to locate the comb, not looking at Suzaku. He actually hadn't looked fully at him since his emergence from the bathroom, probably because the Japanese boy was wandering around in just his underwear again.

Suzaku found it amusing, really – it seemed to be almost a formality on Lelouch's part, the way he immediately and obediently averted his gaze the moment he realised that Suzaku was wearing considerably less than he had been the last time he had looked at him.

He'd dried off quite a bit by now, but got in the shower anyway to warm up. The welcomeness of the warmth, sluicing over his skin like liquid sun, reminded him of that time, almost a fortnight ago now, he had stood beneath the shower in the hot spring resort to heat his blood back up after plunging into an icy lake to save Lelouch.

He leaned back against the glass, tilting his head back and closing his eyes as the hot water rained down on him. It was silly, but… ever since that incident, he felt that he didn't really want to leave Lelouch by himself—

No, not by himself. It was more like… Suzaku didn't care who _else_ was around Lelouch, because he felt anxious about him when _he_ wasn't with him, even knowing that he was with Rivalz or Shirley or Nunnally or whoever. It was idiotic. He knew it was. Lelouch had survived for seven years since that time they had spent together as children – parentless, managing to look after Nunnally as well as himself. It wasn't as though he couldn't fend for himself, but… watching him vanish beneath that ice and not surface again; knowing that if _he_ hadn't been there, Lelouch would have died…

He couldn't explain it – not without sounding ridiculously overprotective of a boy who was actually several months older than him, anyway. All he knew was that he wanted to be with him more than he was able, to pledge himself to him, to be the sword and shield that went before him…

His knight. Lelouch had said that before. Twice before.

That Suzaku should be his knight.

Not that that was possible. Suzaku wasn't a high enough rank to be considered for knighthood and Lelouch wasn't entitled to a knight anyway, having rejected his public status as a prince.

Still, he was Britannian, and Suzaku was part of the Britannian Army. It was his job to protect Britannian civilians, so maybe that was enough.

He shut off the shower and stepped out, quickly towelling off and pulling his underwear back on, throwing on the robe hanging from the back of the bathroom door and tying it so that Lelouch would look at him when he spoke to him. It was Japanese, off-white, with a black and gold phoenix embroidered on the back.

Lelouch was over at the wardrobe looking at his army uniform when he stepped out of the bathroom; he didn't turn to Suzaku, maybe not hearing him, acknowledging him only when he stopped behind him.

"You weren't wearing this the day we met again," Lelouch said expressionlessly, glancing at him over his shoulder.

"No, this is more formal. I wear specialised equipment into combative situations."

"I didn't know you were a Major." Lelouch looked back up at the uniform, his tone still rather despondent.

"Oh, I was promoted not that long ago."

"You didn't say."

"I didn't think you'd be interested." Suzaku shrugged. "It has nothing to do with—"

"Me."

"No, _no_…" Suzaku rubbed at his damp hair. "I was going to say "school". Because, you know, we go to school together, and I don't think my army rank really has anything—"

"You're with Engineering Corps, aren't you?"

"Uh, yes." Suzaku frowned. "How did you know that?"

"You told me."

"Did I?"

Lelouch nodded, still not looking at him.

"Why don't you have a room-mate?" he asked, changing the subject abruptly.

"I came too late in the term. They took the other bed out because there was no chance of anyone sharing with me."

"Is that what they told you?"

"_Lelouch_." Suzaku really wasn't in the mood for this right now. "Don't start. Whatever the reason, if this is what was decided, then that's fine with me."

"Yes, everything's _always_ fine with you, isn't it…?" Lelouch muttered darkly, not really speaking to the young soldier.

"Lelouch," Suzaku said again; though he had nothing to add to the utterance of his best friend's name, instead daring to reach up and gently lay his lands on the Britannian boy's slender shoulders.

Lelouch jumped a little at his touch, clearly not expecting it. He went very still. Suzaku slid his thumbs down over shoulder blades, frowning.

"You're really tense," he said, running his fingers firmly down Lelouch's back, feeling the tension in the muscles. "You shouldn't lean so far over your desk when you're working; it's not good for your back…"

"We can't all sit bolt upright all the time like you, Mr Trained Solider," Lelouch bit out; but he seemed to be enjoying the feel of Suzaku's hands, making a funny little squeaking sound when the Japanese boy pressed hard into a muscle near the small of his back.

"Hm." Suzaku turned Lelouch around and started to steer him towards the bed. "Look, lie down. I can't do it properly if you're standing up."

"Oh, so you give massages now?" Lelouch said, seeming rather taken aback by this sudden strange turn of events.

"I'm hardly an expert, but I know roughly where all the muscles and ligaments and stuff are – it's mostly for First Aid purposes."

"So you've never done this before?"

"I'm not going to hurt you. Trust me, you'll feel so much better afterwards." Suzaku gestured to the bed when they reached it. "Lie down on your stomach. You can keep your shirt on – it's quite thin."

"…Alright." Lelouch lay down on the bed with very little ceremony, making himself comfortable.

Suzaku stood at the side of the bed and looked down at him for a long moment; again, it had been easy to start manhandling his muscles when he hadn't been expecting it, but now that he was lying there, perfectly still, _waiting_ to be touched, Suzaku found himself hesitating.

It was all the wrong way up and he knew it, but he couldn't help his pointless dithering.

"Suzaku," Lelouch said impatiently, "you can make _paper cranes_ on my back if you want, but do _something_. I feel like an idiot."

"Sorry." Suzaku abruptly sat down on the edge of the bed, pushed back the wide sleeves of his robe and reached over towards Lelouch's shoulders, starting with the muscles between his shoulder blades and sinking his fingers into them without thinking about it. He heard Lelouch exhale, perhaps taken by surprise. "Sorry," he muttered again. "Did that hurt?"

"No, it's just…" Lelouch squirmed a little under his touch. "It feels good, just… _ah_, kind of…" He sucked in another breath as Suzaku's firm fingers worked their way down, pressing hard into the sensitive area around the top of his spine. "Okay, yeah… it h-hurts, but…"

"I know what you mean." Suzaku worked the knots out of a muscle towards the middle of Lelouch's back. "Some of it will be uncomfortable, but bear with me. Tell me if I'm being too rough."

Lelouch gave a nod and fell silent – but for the odd little noise here and there whenever Suzaku started on a particularly sore or sensitive spot.

Suzaku concentrated hard on it, getting better at it the further down Lelouch's slender back he went; at first trying to remember what he knew about muscle groups and where they were in the structure of the human back, but gradually learning his way around by touch instead. It was true that he'd never given anyone a back massage before, knowing how to soothe muscles more as a warm-down exercise after combat training, but he was obviously alright at it, since Lelouch hadn't told him to stop, nor even to soften his touch.

In all honesty, he had to admit that he found this kind of… interesting. In lying still and completely silent, Lelouch had shut off his personality, rendering himself as nothing but a purely physical being that Suzaku could know _only_ by touch alone. He was human, but in a purely biological sense, his body reacting to the way that Suzaku touched him only because Suzaku was manipulating his muscles, forcing them to stretch or spasm, draining the ache out of him by corporeal command rather than emotional. He was dehumanised in every other way aside from his physical being – his _shell_, even.

It was a separation of ghost from machine.

_Machine_. Yes, maybe it was like… Well. Lelouch. Lancelot. They were two very different things. If nothing else – sakuradite for blood and steel for skin and Yggdrasil Drive for heart notwithstanding – Suzaku could never hope to control Lelouch the way he did the Lancelot. Despite how laughably fragile humans were – and how easy to create, overpopulating the Earth effortlessly – they somehow remained more complex than even a machine as advanced as Lloyd's precious, ever-enhancing Knightmare.

Maybe it was simply ironic, but the fact remained that no matter how much _better_ than humans Lloyd made the Lancelot, it still lacked the capacity to both do something stupid and to make a reason for it; greed or anger or revenge or hatred or love.

But that was Lelouch now – silent, surrendered completely beneath Suzaku's sway. With every little motion of Lelouch's governed entirely by the way in which Suzaku touched him, he was as much of a mechanical plaything for the boy believed to be Britannia's best pilot as the Lancelot. It was Suzaku who synchronised with him. It was Suzaku who made him move. It was Suzaku who controlled him.

At this moment, Lelouch Lamperouge was nothing but a machine.

And so Suzaku loved him.

He wanted to slide his hands up underneath the shirt he'd lent Lelouch. It was true that it was thin, and true that he was able to feel almost every detail of Lelouch's back through the fabric, but it still felt unbearably in his way – well, that, and the fact that it was actually his _own_ shirt to begin with made him feel rather cheated. He restrained himself, however. He had no excuse for it but that he wanted to better acquaint himself with Lelouch's skin, and that wasn't an excuse. Besides, the last time he had tried to forcibly move a piece of Lelouch's clothing that he'd felt was rather in his way, Lelouch had gotten all flustered and shrank away from him and the whole situation had become very awkward.

So he didn't – and when he was done, finishing at the very depth of the small of Lelouch's back, he didn't linger, withdrawing his hands and folding them in his lap.

"Are you finished?" Lelouch asked after a long moment of silence.

"Yeah. I think I got all the knots out. How does it feel?"

Lelouch knelt up on the bedsheets, flexing his shoulder blades and stretching out his spine.

"Wow," he muttered, more to himself. "That feels… really good…"

Suzaku smiled as Lelouch turned towards him.

"Told you," he replied quietly. "Maybe you'll start sitting up straighter now."

"Suzaku," Lelouch said patiently, "I can't sit up straight _and_ sleep in class. I have to prioritise."

"Note to self: Bring compass to class tomorrow."

"Oh, you're ridiculous," Lelouch snorted. "Giving me a back massage one minute and then threatening to stab me with a mathematical instrument the next…" He crawled over behind Suzaku, who was still sitting on the edge of the bed, and ran his hands over _his_ shoulders – broader, stronger, straighter. "I'll give you a massage, too. It's only fair."

Suzaku blinked, glancing at Lelouch over his shoulder.

"Do you even know _how_?" he asked; although it wasn't concern that Lelouch didn't know where the latissimus dorsi muscle was that made his heart-rate pick up.

"No, but you said _you'd_ never done it before, either," Lelouch replied absently. "I'm sure I can figure it out…"

"O-okay…" Suzaku couldn't help but stiffen a little as he felt his friend paw curiously at his shoulders, though he tried to make it as imperceptible as possible so that Lelouch wouldn't notice.

Lelouch wasn't bold enough, not pressing into his muscles as firmly as he should to really work them over, and it was clear he didn't really have a clue what he was doing, but it still felt quite nice – although Suzaku had a feeling that that might have something more to do with the fact that he knew it was _Lelouch_ who was "massaging" him…

Lelouch stopped. Suzaku felt him trail his hands over the very middle of his back – the place where the phoenix was embroidered on his robe.

"Is this Japanese?" he asked after a moment's pause.

"Oh, uh… yeah," Suzaku replied, looking straight ahead at his army uniform, hanging pristinely from the wardrobe door. "I've had it for years."

"What kind of bird is this?" Lelouch went on – although Suzaku got the impression that he already knew.

"It's a phoenix."

"That's not a real bird."

"Of course not. They die and come back to life. _Nothing_ can do that."

Lelouch didn't say anything in response to that for a long time.

"Do you mind loosening it a bit so that I can push it down?" he asked, returning the topic back to the robe itself. "It's too thick – I can't get at your back properly."

"…Sure, I guess…" The request taking him by surprise, Suzaku slowly undid the knot tying the robe shut, making it easier for Lelouch to grasp it and slide it down over Suzaku's shoulders; it fell away and pooled at his waist, baring the whole of his torso.

Lelouch laid his hands – cool, with slender fingers – on Suzaku's exposed shoulders, but did not resume his "massage". Suzaku merely sat very still, looking fixedly at his army uniform, bewildered by the fact that one minute Lelouch wouldn't so much as look at him shirtless and the next ordered him to loosen his robe.

At long last, Lelouch moved his hands again – but he seemed to have settled his attention on something else, his fingertips trailing down over Suzaku's skin until he reached a spot a little beneath his right shoulder blade.

"This scar…" he murmured at length, ghosting his thumb over it. "…This is where you were shot, isn't it? For disobeying the order… to kill me."

Suzaku frowned, dipping his head a little.

"That's right," he replied blandly. "It's only a little scar, though. If I hadn't been carrying—" He stopped abruptly and gave a little sigh. "Well, I have this watch," he resumed, his voice sinking very low, "and it protected me from the brunt of the bullet."

"You'd probably have died otherwise."

"Yes, I probably would have. It was a point-blank shot."

"And it was lucky that your commanding officer shot you in exactly the same place you were carrying the watch."

"Very lucky."

"So in refusing to kill me… you almost lost your own life – and _would_ have, had you not been the recipient of a stroke of freak luck."

"That's one way of putting it."

"So you really should have killed me."

"No, I shouldn't have – and I'm glad I didn't." Suzaku still didn't glance back at him; closing his eyes, paring down his perception to nothing but the sensation of Lelouch caressing the scar. "I knew what would happen for disobeying an order – after all, I was only a Private then, and an Honorary Britannian Private, at that."

"You _knew_ he'd shoot you for refusing to kill me?" Lelouch repeated incredulously.

"I knew that it was highly likely. I refused anyway." Suzaku gave a little shake of his head. "I didn't regret it – even when I heard him pull the gun on me."

"You're an idiot."

"Well, you owe this idiot your life." Suzaku fidgeted with the belt of his robe. "If that order had been given to anyone else, they wouldn't have refused."

"…I know that." Lelouch took his hands off Suzaku's back completely. "I never said that I wasn't grateful, Suzaku."

Suzaku couldn't help but smile.

"You're grateful that I'm an idiot?"

"Of course. I mean, jumping into a frozen lake? Only an idiot would do that."

"No – only an idiot would _fall_ in."

Lelouch gave a huffy little sigh.

"I guess I can't argue with that," he muttered.

Suzaku felt him shift on the mattress, moving away from him, but kept his eyes closed; opening them only when Lelouch, who had stepped down off the bed, resettled himself on Suzaku's lap, straddling his thighs.

"Does this mean you've given up on the massage?" Suzaku muttered, finding that he now couldn't look at his army uniform to distract himself as Lelouch was completely in the way.

Lelouch nodded.

"Yes," he said morosely. "But it wasn't very good anyway… I don't seem to be doing _anything_ very well today, do I? My prayer beads didn't come out the way I wanted them to and even my class-skipping was interrupted by a sudden torrential downpour…"

"Maybe it's me," Suzaku replied. "Maybe I'm bad luck."

"No, no. Black cats are bad luck." Lelouch smirked. "Like Arthur."

"I thought black cats were _good_ luck."

"Not for you."

"Yeah, cats don't seem to like me much. I wish they did."

"Well, Arthur doesn't seem to like Milly a great deal either now – not since the last time she tried to dress him up."

"Oh, I wondered why he scratched her…"

Suzaku trailed off. The situation was congealing again, fast. He was painfully aware of it, and so, it seemed, was Lelouch. They were ridiculously close, their position extremely suggestive, with Suzaku half-naked and Lelouch in his lap, but yet they were making small talk about the Student Council's adopted pet.

Lelouch suddenly leaned towards him; Suzaku, surprised and relieved all at once, mirrored the motion—

But Lelouch didn't kiss him. Instead he rested his forehead against Suzaku's shoulder, loosely entangled his arms around the Japanese boy's neck and gave a deep but silent sigh, holding him in that lazy embrace as Suzaku himself tried to recalculate the situation so that he could respond accordingly.

He wrapped his arms around Lelouch's waist. Okay, so now they were pretty much… _cuddling_. Kind of.

It was a start – and infinitely better than talking about who Arthur hated.

"Hey," Lelouch said, not lifting his head, "will you teach me how to make a paper crane? Nunnally tried to show me but I couldn't do it."

"Then what makes you think that _I'll_ be able to teach you?"

"Just a hunch."

"Okay, I'll try."

But they didn't move.

"Suzaku," Lelouch started again after another long bout of silence, "…do you like me?"

Suzaku blinked.

"Of course I like you," he replied. "You're my best friend."

He felt Lelouch laugh more so than he heard it.

"I knew you'd say that," Lelouch said, finally raising his head so that he could look at Suzaku properly. "I also know… that _you_ know that's not what I meant."

"Then… what _did_ you mean?" Suzaku asked innocently.

Lelouch's smile became a flatline; he heaved another quiet sigh, unwrapped his arms from around Suzaku's neck and got off his lap.

"I'll admit that you have your slow moments at times," he retorted waspishly, sauntering over to the head of the bed, "but I know for a fact that you're not _that_ stupid." He threw himself down on the bed in clear irritation, resting his head on the pillow and drawing his knees up so that he could curl on his side.

Suzaku sat for a long moment, the abruptness of Lelouch's departure from his lap leaving him temporarily stunned, as though he couldn't quite believe that it had happened. When he finally looked at the Britannian boy, it was apparent to him that said Britannian boy – ex-prince – had well and truly settled into Major Sulk Mode.

Suppressing a sigh of his own, Suzaku pulled his robe back up, clambered onto the mattress properly and crawled over to Lelouch; he set his hands either side of the violet-eyed boy's shoulders, the action assertive enough to make Lelouch roll onto his back to look up at him.

Neither of them said anything. Lelouch still looked rather sulky, his purple eyes regarding Suzaku crossly. When Suzaku still didn't move any further, the Britannian boy gave a frustrated little groan and muttered "Oh, for god's _sake_…" very blackly to himself, looking away again.

So Suzaku grabbed his shoulders, hauled him upright and kissed him.

Lelouch seemed shocked at first, presumably having not expected Suzaku to take the initiative after so long of _not_ taking the initiative, but after a moment relief appeared to wash over him and he sank against the Japanese boy, falling into the kiss properly, reaching up to entangle his arms about Suzaku's neck again.

Wrapping his own arms around Lelouch's back, Suzaku sank down with him to the bedsheets, pinning him. Lelouch didn't seem to mind, squirming a little to fit beneath Suzaku's body as if they were designed to slot together like this. After a moment's debate, Suzaku gently slid his hands out from beneath the arch of Lelouch's back and moved them across his belly, getting his fingers beneath the hem of the green T-shirt. If Lelouch noticed, he didn't react, far more interested in keeping Suzaku's mouth fused with his own. Suzaku slipped his hands up between the thin material of the T-shirt and Lelouch's skin, feeling how warm the Britannian boy was; his fingertips traced a blind map beneath the fabric, skipping over the faint ridges of Lelouch's ribs and up, skating over his thin chest and collarbone.

He was so delicate, so skinny, that it wasn't really normal; for a boy of his age and height, he probably should have had more weight on him – Suzaku knew that.

But he _felt_ perfect.

Lelouch grew a little bolder himself, sliding his hands down from Suzaku's neck to pull at his robe again, opening it. Suzaku had to break from him for breath at this point, kneeling back a little; Lelouch clung to him, hitching a ride upwards, and, after a moment of panting for air himself, started to kiss at Suzaku's throat, working down over his collarbone and onto his chest. They were very tiny kisses, dry and fluttering, but Suzaku loved the feel of each of them, losing count rather quickly. He slid his hands out from under Lelouch's shirt, placing one at the back of the other boy's neck, silky threads of dark hair slipping between his fingers.

"Hey, Suzaku," Lelouch suddenly murmured, nuzzling against Suzaku's throat, "do you think this feels good?"

"The kisses…?"

"All of it. Being this close."

"O-of course…" Suzaku stroked the nape of his neck to assert the sentiment.

"Because I wonder… what it would feel like to be even closer…" Lelouch slipped his hands down over Suzaku's chest and stomach, trailing languidly but definitely towards his underwear. "Humans… can be closer than even _this_."

"Mm." Lulled along by the softness of Lelouch's tone, the suggestiveness of his words, Suzaku let his own hands migrate southbound, settling at the elastic waistband of the grey jogging pants resting low on Lelouch's hips.

Reading his intention, Lelouch lifted himself off the mattress a little so that Suzaku could begin slipping them down; but when Lelouch slipped his own hand into Suzaku's boxers, the Japanese boy came back to his senses, taking Lelouch's wrist and removing his hand again rather firmly.

"Don't you think… this is all going a little bit fast?" he said breathlessly, still holding Lelouch's wrist. "I mean, I've only been at Ashford for a month or two—"

"Suzaku, we've known each other since we were _ten_," Lelouch retorted, very put out.

"Yeah, but… we were separated for years – when you think about it that way, you've known Shirley or Rivalz longer than you've known me."

"But I don't—"

"And anyway," Suzaku interrupted, "even if that wasn't case and we hadn't been separated, we haven't even… I mean, we've just kissed a few times, and now we're already…?"

"Oh, I'm sorry," Lelouch replied sarcastically, pulling his wrist back. "I wasn't aware that you had a three-date rule, Suzaku."

"It's not…" Suzaku gave an impatient sigh. "Look, I just don't want this to be because… we were apart for so long, or because you feel grateful that I saved you—"

"Well, it's not – it's not a happy-to-see-you, and it's not a thankyou, or…" Lelouch's eyes narrowed. "Unless this isn't _about_ that after all."

"Wh… what's that supposed to mean?"

"It means, Suzaku, that this had better not be because you're an "Eleven"," Lelouch spat. "Because I am getting _very_ sick of this. You know that doesn't mean a thing to me."

"It's _you_ I'm worried about!" Suzaku burst out. "People like Jason Kingsley have already proven that they'll turn on anyone who so much as dares to act civil to an Elev— I mean, someone like me. I accept that they'll never like me, never see me as equal, but I can't let that affect you too, Lelouch. I don't want to put you in that position."

"People like…?" Lelouch trailed off in incredulity. "What the _hell_ does this have to do with "people like Jason Kingsley", Suzaku?! It has _nothing_ to do with them – it has nothing to do with _anyone_ except you and me!"

"But it's not that simple, is it?" Suzaku replied calmly. "No matter what you say, we _aren't_ the same. We have different backgrounds, different blood, and we're separated by a class system. You can say it doesn't matter all you want, but you can't dispute the fact that it's there."

"Oh, I know it's there," Lelouch said in a low voice, "but I see no reason why it should invade every last inch of what we have. When I met you, you weren't an "Eleven". You were Japanese. And to me, the only difference between the Suzaku then and the Suzaku now is that you aren't ten years old." He grabbed at Suzaku's robe, leaning towards him. "Are you going to let them do this to us? Are you going to _keep on_ letting them tear us from each other? And for _what_? A reason no longer than six letters?"

"Lelouch—"

"Because that's what it _is_," Lelouch hissed, not letting him speak. "_Eleven_. It's a _word_ – a word describing a numerical value. It doesn't describe a person. It doesn't mean anything outside of numerical practice. It's an idiotic word to use to describe a human being, and anyone who uses it as such is a moron. _How_ can you accept them calling you something so _meaningless_, Suzaku? If they'd been told to call you anything else… Oh, I don't know, Car or Book or Sandwich, then they _would_! You aren't an "Eleven" – that doesn't even make _sense_!"

"Lelouch, _stop_ _it_," Suzaku said firmly, grasping Lelouch by his elbows and giving him a little shake. "I hate it when you're like this. You can't change the world, you know."

Lelouch looked up at him balefully, his amethyst eyes alive with a dull, steely glint.

"_He_ did," he said quietly.

Suzaku let go of him, pushing him away impatiently.

"You shouldn't let it bother you so much," he said stiffly. "How Britannians choose to treat me is my problem."

"How can you say that?" Lelouch snapped, sounding rather hurt. "It's _their_ problem if they treat you badly simply because of where you were born—"

"Why do you care so much?" Suzaku asked coldly, looking away.

"Because I _love_ you!" Lelouch flung back at him angrily.

Suzaku looked back at him cautiously, not quite sure he'd heard him right. Lelouch met his gaze, completely silent, looking very sulky and indignant, as though furious that Suzaku had – somehow, unknowingly, impressively – managed to trick him into admitting his feelings.

Eventually, however, Lelouch could hold his gaze no longer and dropped his own to the bedsheets.

"I don't care if you don't love me back," he muttered. "That's… how I feel, and if you're going to continuously put the feelings of racist bastards like Jason Kingsley in front of mine, then you—"

He cut himself off as Suzaku took hold of him again, pulling him close, as though in part to comfort them both and in part to silence him, to hold him so tightly that he suffocated his words.

"_You shouldn't_," Suzaku murmured against him.

"Why? Because _they_ said?" Lelouch clutched at him almost aggressively. "But why should they have any say? Why should what they think matter? Suzaku, I want it to be like it was before, where I'm Britannian and you're Japanese but it doesn't matter anyway – where it's not even an afterthought, and certainly not a factor of whatever kind of relationship we have. I don't want it to be… that I love you even _though_ you're Japanese and I'm Britannian. I want it to be like that summer, when we were friends because—"

"But you said that you _didn't_ want our friendship to be like that anymore!" Suzaku interrupted. "You said that you wanted it to change."

"Yes – for _us_!" Lelouch put his hands at either side of Suzaku's face, locking their gazes. "I want it to change and be more because _we_ want it to be more. I don't want it to change because of what anyone _else_ says. If we ever become enemies, I want it to be because we _chose_ to become enemies – not because we were told that we _had_ to be." He gave a small, dejected sigh, closing his eyes and leaning forwards a little, resting his forehead against Suzaku's. "…And I love you because I _want_ to," he said very quietly, as though speaking to himself. "There's no other reason – and nor should there be."

Suzaku opened his mouth, but found that he had nothing to say to that. Honestly, it was actually a more mature argument than he'd been expecting. Even if there was defiance of his father's laws in Lelouch – and there certainly _was_ – it wasn't pure defiance that drew him towards Suzaku. As he'd said, he didn't love Suzaku because he shouldn't – he loved him simply because he loved him, which he believed was the only reason for which he _should_ love him. Almost everything about Lelouch Lamperouge was a lie or a sham, even his name, but he was so disarmingly honest about loving another boy, and an "Eleven" one at that… It was as though Suzaku had pulled back the top layer of his being – cool, calm, distant – and was looking at the circuits, the mechanism, beneath.

His need for him surged. It wasn't that Suzaku didn't love him when he seemed completely human – but when he became like a machine…

The way Suzaku suddenly grabbed at him, hard and possessive, seemed to take Lelouch very much by surprise; although he didn't get a chance to voice his shock, finding Suzaku completely dominating his mouth. He let himself be pushed back to the mattress, Suzaku feeling him tangle his arms around his neck as he had before; and as he overcame the Britannian boy completely, Suzaku realised that it was _only_ he who was able to make Lelouch drop his shield like this. It wasn't in Lelouch's nature to surrender himself to people, but with Suzaku, he didn't even seem to fight.

Maybe he felt safe with Suzaku – so safe, in fact, that he didn't seem to mind being hacked by him.

"Do you still want to know…" Suzaku breathed between kisses, "what it feels like… to be even closer… than this?"

Lelouch opened his eyes enough to look up at him and gave a small nod.

"Y-yes, because… humans can be closer… than this, but…" He turned his head aside as Suzaku began to devour his throat. "H-how much closer…? How joined can two… separate beings be…?"

He even spoke in diagnostics.

Lloyd had asked how close two separate beings – man and machine – could be. Suzaku, the pilot of the Lancelot, felt that he knew the answer.

Lelouch had asked how close two separate beings – man and man – could be. Suzaku, Lelouch's best friend, knew that he didn't know the answer.

But it was all experimentation. It was all process. If he wanted to know, he had to learn. _That_ much he knew.

Lelouch seemed to know that too. He obliged without a word when Suzaku hooked his thumbs inside the waistband of the jogging pants again and told him to lift his hips; the thick grey material slid down his legs and off with ease.

Suzaku had seen his legs before, of course – grudgingly clothed in gym shorts whenever Lelouch was, on the odd occasion, unable to escape his fate. Long, pale, with muscle enough to give them shape but otherwise appearing fairly devoid of any indicator of physical strength; they were curiously graceful in any normal activity, but Lelouch immediately tripped over them when it came to class basketball or running track.

"Are you just going to stare at me?" Lelouch asked irritably, propping himself up on his elbows.

"Oh, I… sorry," Suzaku muttered; he reached out towards Lelouch, took hold of him around his ribcage and hoisted him upright. "That's better – lift your arms so I can take the shirt off…"

Lelouch obliged, allowing Suzaku to pull the green T-shirt off over his head, leaving him naked but for his black underwear. Suzaku thought it fascinating how anyone could look so awkward and yet elegant at the same time. Unclothed like this, with nothing to hide his slimness, Suzaku was almost afraid to touch him, never mind slam him to the mattress. The idle joke that he might shatter him into a thousand little pieces if he was too rough with him didn't seem quite so much of a joke now – and Suzaku knew that he wasn't the gentlest person in the world.

How different they were – and how obvious it was, especially now. When Lelouch had showered kisses down Suzaku's chest, he had gone muscle-by-muscle, trailing over pectorals and abs, all defined by years of training, but Lelouch himself… was very flat and sharp-angled, with the little definition he had being quite soft.

Either tired of being given the once-over or simply not caring that Suzaku could physically snap him in two, Lelouch leaned up for another kiss, pressing his slight frame into Suzaku's larger one. Suzaku gingerly wrapped his arms around him, resting his palm at the back of his neck again – and realising, even though he hadn't before, that he could almost fit his hand around Lelouch's neck.

So he was torn. He badly wanted Lelouch, wanted to experience the ultimate "closeness" of humans with him, to see if it was the same as piloting the Lancelot or worse or better; but knowing his strength, knowing that he could so easily hurt someone as underwhelming and trusting as Lelouch, and knowing what he was _capable_ of, made him want to recoil and keep Lelouch safe by pushing him away.

"Suzaku…" Lelouch pulled back from him. "What's the matter? Are you… having second thoughts?" It was as though the thought hadn't occurred to the Britannian boy before, but now his face flushed slightly pink and he glanced away. "I'm sorry, maybe you're not… I mean, if you think you're actually straight and you're just doing this to keep me happy—"

"It isn't that," Suzaku interrupted, making Lelouch look up at him again. "I mean, I… well, that doesn't really matter, but it's not _me_, it's…" He gave a sigh, getting impatient with himself. "Are you sure… you really want this?"

Lelouch rolled his eyes.

"Not this again," he muttered blackly. "Yes, I _do_, and we could have been done with it by now if you didn't keep stopping to ask me that. Honestly, you make it sound as though I'm about to sign away my soul…"

"…Sorry." Suzaku took hold of him very carefully, still afraid to touch him with too much force. "W-well, if _I_ want to, and if _you_ want to, then…"

"Then there's no problem." Lelouch glanced at Suzaku's hands, noting the scarcity of his touch. "Suzaku, you've _hit_ me a lot harder than this and not broken me. I'm more robust than I look, trust me."

Suzaku obediently tightened his grip.

"You… you _will_ tell me if I'm hurting you, though, won't you?" he murmured.

"Of course I will." Lelouch squirmed out of Suzaku's grasp, lying back again. "Now hurry up, before I really _do_ change my mind."

"Okay…"

Suzaku shrugged his robe off and leaned over Lelouch, hands on the mattress either side of him; Lelouch looked up at him expectantly, his near-nakedness still very strange. They were actually in the same state now – in only their underwear – but Suzaku doubted that Lelouch felt the same way about it. Clothing, and uniforms in particular, was something exclusively and implicitly human. Different styles held the meanings of different codes; social, cultural, personal. Wearing a Japanese kimono and hakama or wearing a Britannian Army uniform… one implied a sense of clinging to washed-under values, while the other implied an acceptance of defeat and assimilation into the ways of the conqueror.

So it was ironic that clothing held so much meaning when humans tore it off in order to be closer to one another. In that sense, did nakedness make them less human… or _more_?

Either way, again he quite felt that Lelouch was far more of a machine like this – maybe because he lay still and gave him himself up to Suzaku completely, waiting for him to take control of him and do what he would, rather like the Lancelot, which had no mind of its own and instead took share of _his_.

…He didn't quite know what to do, to be honest – wasn't sure where to start, had no idea what Lelouch would like and where, but he reasoned that he had enjoyed touching Lelouch before, understanding his structure by his hands, and that Lelouch hadn't seemed to mind, so he reached out and started at the Britannian boy's collarbone, fingers tracing the jut of it through his paper-thin skin. Lelouch gave a little sigh, the meaning behind which was impossible to read, and closed his eyes, allowing Suzaku to reacquaint himself with his slender body without disruption; so Suzaku tried to map it out as he had memorised the map of the Lancelot's control panel.

Lelouch was infinitely more sensitive, though. It was obvious as Suzaku further explored him – he moved, gave little sighs or gasps, reached for Suzaku's hair and tangled his fingers in the wild curls, still a little damp. He made an odd sound, very tiny, almost like a grunt and a gasp bled together, when Suzaku touched his left nipple, and jerked violently beneath him, as though Suzaku had managed to jumpstart something in him.

"Sorry." Suzaku was aware that he was saying "Sorry" a lot, almost as a reflex action spurred by Lelouch's reactions to either his words or ministrations; nonetheless, he withdrew his hand.

"No, _no_…" Lelouch opened his eyes impatiently. "Suzaku, that felt _good_."

"But… you made that sound and I thought—"

"Because I _liked_ it!" Lelouch grabbed at his hand and firmly put it back on his chest. "There – now do it properly."

Suzaku couldn't help but smile. It was such a prince-like demand. Either way, it was clear that Lelouch certainly had a mind of his own – the _Lancelot_ had never irritably told Suzaku to do something properly.

He trailed his hands downwards again, re-learning Lelouch's structure – re-learning, he felt, almost everything about him. This was separated so much from everything else they shared, or had ever shared – childhood or day-to-day school life or simply spending time together as friends – and so it had its own rules, its own reality. It was like the ruined shrine that Lelouch had shared with him, completely cut off from the outside world which was so unfair.

Lelouch twisted on the sheets beneath Suzaku's touch, arching off them when fingers ran over his nipples again, gentle at first, but the contact becoming hard and bruising the more he reacted; Suzaku's confidence growing the more control Lelouch gave him.

Suzaku bent to kiss one as his hands slithered lower, his curious stroking exploring the flat region, an Old World Earth, of Lelouch's belly; Lelouch writhed, giving a coughing little cry as he pushed upwards helplessly into Suzaku's mouth, his back leaving the mattress as far as the young soldier's weight would allow. Suzaku was mildly surprised – he would never have thought Lelouch quite this physically receptive (though perhaps that was only because he always looked so bored by everything).

He lifted his mouth and moved across to kiss the other, then down to meet his own hands, sprinkling kisses, as Lelouch had done, on the Britannian boy's stomach to distract him from the fact that his hands were going lower still. At last he reached the waistband of Lelouch's underwear, sitting quite low on his narrow hips. He paused for a moment, then grasped at it and began to pull—

"Wait." Lelouch suddenly sat up, batting him off. "I, uh…"

"Sorry." Suzaku snatched his hands back. "Was that… was it too soon? Or don't you—"

"No, no," Lelouch interrupted. "It's just… I should have asked before, but do you… _have_ anything?" He glanced away, his face flushing pink again. "I mean, to… to make it… you know, _easier_."

"To make…?" Suzaku's eyes widened in sudden understanding. "_Oh_, right, yeah…" He glanced wildly around the room. "I, um… I-I'll just go… check in the bathroom…"

He hesitated, then scrambled off the bed and darted away towards the bathroom, leaning against the wall once he was in. He could feel the heat flaring in his face – it had been a perfectly sensible request, of course, but it was something that Suzaku himself had forgotten all about. Ironic, really, that he'd been so concerned about Lelouch's physical smallness, about the fact that he might accidentally hurt him, and hadn't even _considered_ that…

He fumbled about the bathroom, picking up various bottles and looking at them to see what they were. Shampoo, shower gel… they were all no good. He had a quick rummage in the cabinet used mostly for First Aid supplies and found, buried at the back, an unopened tub of lotion for dry skin – he wasn't even sure why he had it, since the unbroken seal was proof enough that he'd clearly never felt the need to use it.

"Would this be okay?" he asked, bringing it back to show Lelouch.

"Looks alright," Lelouch replied nonchalantly, scanning over the ingredients.

"Okay, then – we'll use this." Suzaku knelt back on the sheets between Lelouch's legs and ran his nail along the seal keeping the tub shut, beginning to twist the lid off. "Ah, no, wait…" He suddenly aborted the motion and rather abruptly shoved the tub into Lelouch's hands. "It's going to go everywhere if I do that, I need to…" He looped his fingers beneath Lelouch's underwear and took it off with very little ceremony; Lelouch blinked at him in clear confusion but Suzaku didn't pay any attention to him, kneeling up to slip his own boxers off.

Stunned, not quite sure where to look, Lelouch wordlessly allowed Suzaku to take the tub back; Suzaku, part driven by need and part rather embarrassed and trying to cover for it, still didn't really offer him his attention, unscrewing the lid and putting it aside, plunging the first two fingers of his right hand straight into the lotion.

He did notice, however, that Lelouch promptly snapped his legs shut on seeing the forcefulness of the action.

"Oh," he started quickly, "I, um… I wasn't going to be so… I-I mean, I don't want to hurt you, hence…" He held up the tub to assert his meaning. "I would never…" He trailed off hopelessly, aware that his face had probably flooded with crimson again.

"I know, just…" Lelouch gave a small sigh. "Don't unsettle me like that…"

"Sorry."

"And stop _apologising_."

So Lelouch _had_ noticed how much he was saying "Sorry". Suzaku shot him a guilty little grin, reaching over to put the tub of lotion on the bedside table.

"What should I say, then?" he asked, leaning down towards the Britannian boy.

"Don't say anything," Lelouch replied; he pushed himself up on his elbows, pressing his mouth to Suzaku's.

Suzaku let himself be pulled into the kiss, giving him his way and feeling him part his legs again as he relaxed, offering much better access; Suzaku slipped his hand underneath him and felt for his entrance. Lelouch was rather distracted, apparently not paying much attention to whatever his friend was doing aside from kissing him – Suzaku gave a sudden push and slid his first finger, slick with lotion, up into him.

Lelouch bit him.

"_Lelouch_!" Suzaku snapped his head back and wiped at his bleeding bottom lip with his free hand.

"I'm sorry!" Lelouch retorted breathlessly. "You should have… _warned_ me you were… going to do that!"

"I didn't want you to tense up."

"I didn't mean to bite you, Suzaku. I said I was sorry. Here." Lelouch took his shoulder and pulled him back down to his level, licking away the blood.

"Now _you're_ the one who keeps apologising," Suzaku murmured.

"I have a reason to," Lelouch replied, taking his mouth away again. "Although, so do _you_ now…"

"Lelouch, I have to do this – I'm sure it's not comfortable but it'll hurt more if I don't—"

"Alright, spare me the detail." Lelouch lay back properly, resting his head on the pillow. "Do whatever you want, idiot."

That again. Suzaku looked down at him, the sour, salty taste of copper still in his mouth; the big violet eyes were wide open, returning his gaze but unreadable. Lelouch had said that before.

And he hadn't meant it. When what Suzaku had wanted had been against _his_ wishes, he had manipulated the Japanese boy into complying with what _he_ wanted instead. That kind of behaviour, the ability to bend other people's wills, was an anomaly of a purely human type.

It was not found in machines.

And yet, even though his odd analysis repeatedly concluded that Lelouch was un-machine-like – based on his physical responsiveness, his demanding behaviour and his twisted talent to make other people do as he desired – Suzaku couldn't help but feel that there _was_ something mechanical about him, or about _this_, yet. With his finger inside him, he could feel the heat of him, feel every pulse, every movement of muscle; they were all signs that he was alive, but mechanised ones, unconscious, by-products of the fact that he _was_ alive—

As in the Lancelot, by which the resonations of the Yggdrasil Drive, the sound of the Core Luminous, the pulse of the sakuradite were signs, but by-products, of the fact that he had ignited it.

_But can you destroy as the Lancelot does, Lelouch…?_

Suzaku moved his finger and Lelouch arched on the mattress again, his eyes squeezing shut; he reached back to claw at the pillow as Suzaku twisted his finger and pushed as deep as he could. Suzaku felt that he had driven him to helplessness again, gotten him back under his control, with every movement or sound Lelouch made governed by _his_ ministrations upon him.

Lelouch seized up, however, when Suzaku worked in a second finger, his eyes snapping open again; he cried in pain and dragged his nails down Suzaku's back, perhaps in an effort to get him to retract the second digit.

Suzaku didn't. His back stinging, aware that Lelouch was still clinging to him, nails imbedded, he forced the second finger up to join the first, listening to the uneven rhythm of Lelouch's breathing, interspersed with little whines. Even though he _was_ sorry that he was hurting his friend, he didn't say it. His worn-out buzzword was worthless now, with his fingers walking the walls of Lelouch's being.

He said nothing – and neither did Lelouch.

Towards the end Lelouch clutched around Suzaku's neck instead, nails out of him but leaving a scattered trail of sulky red crescent moons down his muscular back; his breathing had slowed and his spine had shaken off its rigidity as he got used to the feeling of Suzaku invading him.

(Frankly, Suzaku felt that _he_ was worse off – he'd been bitten _and_ scratched for his trouble. Lelouch appeared to have taken a leaf out of Arthur's book when it came to "defending himself" against Suzaku…)

He slipped his fingers out of Lelouch and bent down to give him a reassuring kiss on the forehead – his dark fringe had parted, baring the pale skin of it. Lelouch lay very still and let him do it, his violet eyes half-open; his arms fell away from being wrapped around Suzaku's neck when the Japanese boy leaned back again to reach for the tub of lotion.

"Are you… definitely sure?" he asked softly, pausing just as he was about to pick it up.

Lelouch gave a snort and looked away, not saying a word. Suzaku took that as a very grouchy "_Yes_, for god's sake!" and picked up the tub, scooping out another handful and reaching down to slick himself with it. He hadn't realised how erect he was, surprised to feel the heat and hardness beneath his hand – the coldness of the lotion was an unpleasant juxtaposition, making him give a little shudder. He made sure to cover himself completely, though, determined not to hurt Lelouch.

As prepared as he felt he could make himself, Suzaku leaned back over Lelouch, taking hold of the Britannian boy's thighs to better position him; Lelouch gave the impression of not being very interested, looking up at the ceiling, but Suzaku could feel him tensing up again in his grip.

"Lelouch…" Suzaku rubbed at his thighs comfortingly. "I would never hurt you on purpose."

"I know," Lelouch replied snippily, still not looking at him. "Don't worry about me. Just do it."

"I…" Suzaku gave a hopeless shake of his head. "Okay…" He leaned down towards him, pressing close to the smaller boy, feeling the tantalising closeness of their bare skin; he guided himself towards Lelouch's entrance and began to push—

But something – he wasn't quite sure what – made him open his eyes again to look at Lelouch and he stopped, washed under by a sudden, aching wave of pity.

"You're too tense," he said, sitting back again. "Lelouch, I can't do it unless you relax. I'll just hurt you."

"I'm _sorry_, okay?" Lelouch snapped, finally looking up at him; his eyes were a little wet, but the tears looked as though they were due purely to frustration at himself. "I can't help it; you were right to… well, to take me by surprise that other time, but…"

"What's wrong?"

"I'm scared," Lelouch said angrily. "I apologise, I know I probably seem all over the place, since I… well, _I _was the one who told _you_ to stop worrying about hurting me, and I know you're not going to—"

"Lelouch…" Suzaku gave him a weak but very real little smile. "If you're scared, we don't… I mean, we don't _have_ to do this—"

"Yes, we do!" Lelouch shook his head. "No, that's not what I… I mean that I _want_ to, I just…" He looked away again, letting his hair fan across his face. "…I've never done this before."

Suzaku blinked.

"…With a boy, you mean?"

"Or a girl," Lelouch said irritably. "I mean _at all_, idiot."

"Oh." Suzaku almost laughed. "Well, neither have I, Lelouch."

"Oh, _that's_ reassuring…" Lelouch muttered darkly.

"It _is_," Suzaku pressed. "Then there's no pressure. We can just… learn together, right?"

"If you say so."

But Lelouch sounded a little calmed by his words, and certainly less upset. Suzaku bent to kiss him again, slipping one hand beneath the back of his head, cradling his skull; Lelouch's retaliation stirred the wound in the Japanese boy's lip, bringing forth a little blood. It tasted unpleasant, but to Suzaku, it was also sort of… comforting. He was a soldier, after all – he'd tasted his own blood more times than he could count.

Sometimes, in the Lancelot, man and mind and machinery so closely interfaced, he gasped for breath and felt the sweat running off him and swore that he could taste blood.

So he went on instinct, as he would in battle; he felt Lelouch relax beneath him again, soothed by the meeting of their mouths, and didn't warn him. He entered him without a word of his own, capturing his cry with the cage of their kiss. Lelouch bucked underneath him, instinctively thrashing, but Suzaku didn't withdraw, instead doing his best to hold him still.

"You said you wanted this," Suzaku murmured, breaking the kiss and grabbing at Lelouch's slender shoulders. "Y-you said… you wanted to know what it felt like… for us to be this close…"

"I _do_, I just—" Lelouch cut himself off with a grimace. "…It _hurts_, Suzaku…!"

Suzaku didn't say anything, looming over him and buried inside his body; it didn't feel quite as he had expected, somehow. Not _bad_; hot and tight, and, as before, he could feel every example Lelouch unconsciously made of his being alive – so, really, it felt as it _should_. He didn't know what he'd been expecting.

But either way, everything within his perception had now been reduced to _this_. He and Lelouch could be no closer, and the feeling of it, the knowledge and the experience, dominated every square inch of his being, caressed every neuron and permeated every pore. Their pulses ran level, their breathing hitched in time, and Suzaku felt Lelouch's thin half-erection against his belly, just as he could feel himself inside Lelouch.

…_We're synchronised. _

He could hold himself back no longer. Whether it was mad of him to compare this to piloting a Knightmare or not, he felt that same control, that same intimate level of synchronisation with the other being – man, machine – he was joined to. It seemed that that was simply how he was – he needed the object of his affection to submit to him completely before he fell utterly in love with it.

(He loved anything that he was in control of, and could overpower, but which was _still_ capable of killing him.)

He gave an experimental thrust forward; it was clumsy and a bit shaky, and Lelouch shrieked and clawed at him, raking his nails over the Japanese boy's shoulders, but Suzaku didn't mind, mind and body both set on fire by the feeling of plunging himself into Lelouch. He could already feel the heat coiling like a tightly-set spring in the pit of his belly and knew he wouldn't last long, absolutely overwhelmed.

"I'll go… slow, okay?" he whispered.

Lelouch loosened his nails from Suzaku's flesh and gave a weary, somewhat-defeated nod; he didn't look as though he was enjoying himself at all. Suzaku kissed him on the forehead again as he slid back and then forwards again, keeping the rhythm as slow as he could manage. Lelouch still made a sound as Suzaku moved, but it didn't sound so pained; he lay loose and still, allowing Suzaku to gently rock back and forth against him.

"Le-Lelouch," Suzaku panted after a long few moments. "M-move with me… it'll feel better…" He reached down and took hold of Lelouch's narrow hips, making him rock in time with Suzaku himself – their hips moving in the same direction. He heard Lelouch give a little sigh as he pressed himself against the Japanese boy's hands, giving him more leverage.

They had resigned to a good rhythm – Suzaku doing most of the work but Lelouch going with it, making it easier – but then it slipped, Suzaku losing his stride and pulling at Lelouch's hips instead. Lelouch gave underneath him and Suzaku lost his balance, ending up crushed against him, close enough to feel the shudder rip through the Britannian boy's thin frame.

"What's wrong?" Suzaku managed to get out, pushing himself up again on shaky arms.

"Whatever… you just did…" Lelouch gasped in reply, "it felt amazing…"

"Oh…" Suzaku managed to smile. "That's good… Must have… been your prostate…"

"Do it again."

"I… I'll try, but I don't…" Suzaku leaned down again, bracing one arm against the headboard the bed, taking Lelouch's left hip with the other, and gave a sudden sharp movement into him.

Lelouch jerked and twisted, but then he violently shook his head.

"No," he said breathlessly, "that… that wasn't it…"

"I'm sorry, this position… is awkward…" Suzaku re-angled and drove down again, but Lelouch simply gave a stifled cry and shook his head again.

"N-no, that still wasn't…"

"I'll try again, Lelouch."

Suzaku sucked in a breath, inwardly seething for letting the exact position slip through his perception; Lelouch was so much more sensitive than the Lancelot that dealing with him on a calculated, exact basis was that much more difficult. The young soldier held him as securely as he could and tried to hit his prostate again – but he had no idea which way and from which angle he'd accidentally hit it the first time. He gave a few useless thrusts, which _he_ felt the benefit of but was sure that Lelouch hadn't, for the Britannian boy simply winced every time he pushed into his body, and gave a few dry, coughing little gasps.

"I'm sorry." Though he was nearing his peak, feeling every fibre of his body tightening itself up, Suzaku stopped again, looking down at Lelouch; the dark-haired boy opened his amethyst eyes at the sound of his friend's voice. "This…" Suzaku gave a little sigh. "…This isn't going well, is it?"

Still breathless, his low stamina having apparently given out at least five minutes ago, Lelouch simply gave a half-hearted shrug, sprawled on the bedsheets beneath Suzaku.

"I'm sorry," Suzaku whispered again, lowering himself to bury his face against Lelouch's neck.

"Stop… _apologising_," Lelouch ordered, still very much out of breath; but he raised his hand and put it to the back of Suzaku's skull, sharp fingers delving into the thicket of brown curls.

Suzaku gave a sigh and closed his eyes, feeling Lelouch lazily trail mazes through his hair; he was still within him, as deep as he could go, _connected_. It was the final word in physical closeness – he could get no further inside him, could synchronise with him no more than this…

…And yet he felt that that was entirely the problem: It was a failure of synchronisation. Some connection hadn't quite reached its full potential, some wire was loose and sparking. Of course, he hadn't expected it to be perfect – not only was it their first time with each other, it was also their first time with anyone at _all_, for _both_ of them. It was ridiculous to presume that it would have all gone smoothly – his first time piloting the Lancelot certainly hadn't. But still he felt frustrated, because he was certain that there was a reason that they were falling short aside from general new-at-this ineptness.

There was something _missing_.

What hadn't he done? Why did he feel that he could be yet closer to Lelouch when they were already as close as they physically could be? If he was going to insist on comparing it to piloting the Lancelot, then what parallel was missing? Accept orders, enter, synchronise, take control—

Ah. Three words. That was it. He almost laughed again. _Yes, Your Highness. All hail Britannia_. Three words. It was always three words.

Three words always set everything in motion.

He pushed upwards again, Lelouch's hand falling away from his hair; he looked down at him, jade eyes shining.

"I love you," he said.

For a very long moment, Lelouch offered no response whatsoever, not even blinking – but then he smiled, and it was real (not amused or sour or sarcastic or _fake)_, truly, truly _real_, the smile he saved only for his sister and for Suzaku.

He still said nothing, but after another moment he began to heave himself up, reaching for Suzaku; Suzaku wrapped his arms around him, pulling him close. Lelouch draped his own arms around the Japanese boy's shoulders and settled against him. Suzaku waited for him to get comfortable, rather under the impression that Lelouch had actually given up and would be perfectly content to just sit like this instead – but even if that was the case, their ongoing physical connection was still very much a factor. Even though their movements had all but ceased, Suzaku felt that he couldn't hold out much longer – surprised, in fact, that he hadn't spilt himself already.

"Hey," he whispered close to Lelouch's ear, "you mind if I try again? If it hurts, I'll stop."

Lelouch simply gave a silent nod in reply, his face against Suzaku's right shoulder.

Suzaku tightened his grip around the Britannian boy's slender waist, holding him securely, and gave a thrust upwards, injecting all of his strength into his hips to drive himself as deeply into Lelouch as he could possibly manage.

It was enough. Either it was the completely-changed angle or simply that Lelouch had given up the ghost, but from the sudden high wail he gave, and the way he arched his back and ripped into Suzaku's shoulder blades with his nails, the young soldier suspected that he'd managed to hit his prostate again. His stomach was suddenly wet and sticky, and Lelouch sank against him again, violet eyes glazed and breathing rather erratic.

Suzaku barely noticed, clinging to Lelouch as the explosive heat of orgasm washed over _him_ too; he'd reached the edge and tumbled over it at the sound of Lelouch's cry, that wail of pleasure ensnaring him – because although it had sounded near-unintelligible, it had not been.

It had been Suzaku's name.

(No. What an idiot he was. Lelouch was nothing like the Lancelot. Even the Lancelot did not acknowledge him as Lelouch did. The Lancelot did not cry his name. The Lancelot did not love him back.)

* * *

Suzaku was straightening his tie in the mirror when Lelouch finally awoke; the Japanese boy saw him in the mirror's reflection, dazedly surfacing from beneath the bedsheets. He'd slept for much longer than Suzaku, and much more deeply, not even awakening when Suzaku eventually eased himself out of his grip and slipped away towards the bathroom to clean himself up.

"Hello, Lelouch," Suzaku greeted him softly, turning to face him.

"Hello, Suzaku," Lelouch replied, rubbing at his hair – it was sticking up in all directions like a rough halo of spikes. He sat up, propping a pillow against the headboard so that he could lean against it more comfortably, and looked at Suzaku properly, tilting his head. "Why are you dressed in your army uniform?"

"I have to go in to work."

"At this time?" Lelouch glanced around for some form of timepiece, locating a small alarm clock on the bedside table. "…Is it seriously seven-fifteen?"

"Mm." Suzaku fidgeted with his tie again – he couldn't get his collar to sit properly, probably because he hadn't ironed it right. "In the evening – no need to panic."

"Even so, that's later… than I thought…"

"You were sleeping quite heavily. I thought I might wake you when I got up about half an hour ago but you didn't stir."

"…Oh." Lelouch didn't appear to have much to say to that; he pulled the sheets up closer to his bare chest and averted his gaze.

"I wish I didn't have to," Suzaku said quickly; although he meant it, he vocalised it very much to simply fill the silence.

"You wish you didn't have to what?" Lelouch asked absently.

"Go to work. It's just some silly diagnostics test, I've done loads of them before, but my supervisor insists that we do it at least once a week…" Suzaku gave a sigh, rubbing at the back of his head abashedly. "But I'd much rather stay here with you."

Silence again.

"Lelouch?" Suzaku lowered his hand again very slowly, gazing confusedly across the room at the other boy, who seemed to have become strangely sulky again. "What's the matter?"

"That's a good question." Lelouch finally looked at him, knuckles near-white from how tightly he was clutching the sheets in his forgotten fists. "Suzaku, I want to ask, and I want an honest answer… Are you _glad_ that we…?" He trailed off, shook his head and tried again. "I mean, are you happy that we decided to… well, that you and I are…?"

Suzaku suspected that a little colour had made another unwelcome appearance in his face; but Lelouch had said that he wanted an honest answer, so…

"Of course I am," he said firmly. "You… you think I'd regret it? I know it wasn't all that great, I mean… well, not _really_, at least at the start, but… being so close to you, sharing that with you—"

"Why, though?" Lelouch interrupted.

Suzaku blinked.

"Why… am I glad?"

"Yes." Lelouch fidgeted with the sheets. "Is it because you're an "Eleven" and I'm Britannian? Is it because it felt good? Is it because you just wanted to lose your virginity and I was nearer than a girl?"

Suzaku _stared_ at him, struck speechless for a long moment.

"Why are you being like this?" he managed to ask when his voice finally trickled back into his throat.

"Because I need to know," Lelouch replied stonily. "I need to know that none of those things matter. I need to know that none of those things are the reason you're happy."

"Then what if it's because I love you?" Suzaku asked coolly. "What if it's because _I_ wanted to know what it was like for two humans to be that close just as much as you did? What if it's because I wanted it to change for our sake, for _us_ – just like you said _you_ wanted?" He found himself clenching his fists. "Would that be okay, Lelouch? Would that be a good enough answer for you?!"

"Yes," Lelouch said quietly. He dropped his gaze again, but he was smiling now. "I suppose that would do."

Suzaku exhaled deeply, unclenching his fists again but standing where he was. It was getting late; he should probably get going—

"Hey," Lelouch said suddenly, glancing up again and outstretching an arm towards Suzaku. "Come here for a moment."

Suzaku hesitated, then gave an irritated snort to show his disapproval of Lelouch ordering him around as he complied with Lelouch ordering him around and approached the bed.

"What?" he inquired, standing at the bedside and towering over Lelouch, who was still sitting against the headboard.

"You'll have to bend down," Lelouch said. "I can't reach you."

Heart-rate picking up again, Suzaku sat on the edge of the bed and leaned towards him as the Britannian boy's hands came up towards his shoulders. Maybe a kiss to apologise for how he'd been earlier? Suzaku let his eyes slide closed—

But they snapped open again indignantly when he felt Lelouch's hands begin to straighten his shirt collar, adjusting his tie beneath it.

"It was annoying me," Lelouch explained without prompting. "I don't think you've ironed it right – the crease is misaligned." He gave another tug and more or less got it in order. "There – it looks better now, though."

Suzaku grabbed him by the shoulders, pinned him against the headboard and kissed him. Lelouch offered no form of struggle whatsoever, winding his arms around Suzaku's neck and pulling him down further; but after a very long moment of letting himself melt into it, even allowing Lelouch to mess up his hair again, he abruptly pulled away.

"I'm sorry," he said breathlessly. "I have to go, Lelouch."

"_You_ kissed _me_."

"I know. I said I was sorry." He kissed him again. "But I have to go. I'm going to be late."

"Go, then." Another kiss.

"I am." And another.

Suzaku finally pulled away, but he'd barely straightened when he felt that he simply _had_ to bend down for one more.

"Sorry," he whispered against Lelouch's mouth, right before his met with it. "I want nothing more… than to just stay here with you, but—"

"But you have to go."

"Yes." It finally struck him as a very real apparency and Suzaku pulled away properly. "I have to go." He started to back away across the room, not taking his eyes off Lelouch. "Uh, so… your clothes are still on the radiator – they should be dry by now, and… um, well, I guess I'll see you later—no, tomorrow, I probably won't be back until quite late tonight…" He bumped against the door, feeling blindly behind him for the handle. "Don't forget you promised to go to all your classes tomorrow."

"I won't." Lelouch waved lazily at him from the bed. "Goodbye, Suzaku."

"…Bye." Suzaku floundered for another long moment, then managed to get the door open and shot through it, closing it firmly behind him.

He leaned against it and took a deep breath. He felt awful just leaving Lelouch and hoped he didn't think badly of him for it – he really did want nothing more than to stay with him, to spend the whole night snuggled up against him, each of them wrapped tightly in the other's arms (as they had been before Suzaku had forced himself to get up and get ready for work)—

But he couldn't. He had to go.

The Lancelot was waiting for him.

* * *

"Suzaku…" Cecile leaned further over Lloyd's shoulder, blinking. "These numbers are incredible." She looked upwards towards the open cockpit of the Lancelot. "Your synchronisation ratio with the Lancelot has never been so high."

Suzaku pushed his sweaty hair out of his eyes.

"Really?" he asked.

"Mm." Cecile beamed. "Ninety-nine per cent. Usually you peak at ninety-six, which is still absolutely amazing, the absolute highest of any Knightmare pilot in the entire Britannian Army, but—"

"It _is_ very interesting," Lloyd interrupted, pushing up his glasses. "Very interesting indeed… The last diagnostics feedback session was last Wednesday, and you haven't been out in the Lancelot since then… Hmm…" He inclined closer to his computer screen, dissolving into thought.

Cecile stepped away from him and came over to the Lancelot, looking up at Suzaku again.

"I have some water and a towel for you," she said. "Do you want to come down?"

"Sure. Thanks, Cecile." Suzaku made to get of the pilot seat, but Lloyd suddenly raised a hand.

"No, wait a moment, Suzaku," he said firmly. "Stay where you are. I want to run another quick little test. You're free to go after that."

"Oh…" Suzaku sank back into his seat. "Okay."

"Thanks," Lloyd said absently, beginning to type. "I just need to make a few preparations… It's just a theory, of course, but why the sudden three per cent jump in your synchronisation rate? There's just a little something… I want to know…"

"What do I have to do?" Suzaku asked. "Shall I lock the cockpit again?"

"No, you don't have to do that – you don't have to do anything, actually. Just sit where you are with your hands on the controls and I'll do the rest from here."

Cecile sat on one of railings around the workstation the Lancelot was standing on as Lloyd ran his test, the digits lighting up the screen reflected backwards on his glasses.

"Huh," he said, resting his chin on his knuckles.

"What's wrong?" Cecile asked.

"Nothing, nothing…" Lloyd tapped the screen. "This is just a basic biological run-down of the pilot – it measures things like heart-rate in BPM, blood oxygen and sugar levels, hormone levels…"

"And…?"

"Well, while I don't really see why it would have affected the sync ratio with the Lancelot, a lot of these values are slightly outside Suzaku's norm."

"And what does that mean?" Cecile pressed.

"It means that the synchronisation rate with the Lancelot is, for Suzaku, slightly altered by his physical state – and right _now_…" Lloyd smirked. "…Suzaku's physical state shows all the symptoms of someone who is in love."

Cecile blinked, then looked up at Suzaku again – who had heard everything and said nothing. His face had gone rather white.

"You think… he synced better with it… because he's in _love_?" Cecile repeated incredulously.

Lloyd shrugged.

"Well, that sounds very romantic, doesn't it?" he said sardonically. "Perhaps he just got lucky very recently. Maybe even lost his virginity—"

"_Lloyd_!" Cecile folded her arms. "Don't be so personal. That's none of our business." She looked at Suzaku. "I'm sorry, Suzaku. You know what he's like."

Suzaku gave an absent nod, but then looked down at Lloyd.

"You think… that's what it is?" he asked.

Lloyd grinned.

"Ah, so you confess?" He rested his chin on his interlocked hands as Suzaku flushed crimson.

"You never said you had a girlfriend, Suzaku," Cecile said, smiling up at him. "I'll bet she's pretty."

"Wh-what…?" Suzaku shook his head violently. "No, no… there's no girlfriend, there's no…" He gave a weary sigh, trailing off, too tired to finish.

Lloyd hummed contentedly to himself and went back to his typing.

"It's interesting," he said again gleefully. "I mean, my Lancelot is such a sensitive machine, I guess it's not altogether surprising that a pilot of your skill would able to become so close with it that you almost share your emotional output with it. I wouldn't put it past you to be able to sync past your usual peak of ninety-six per cent if you were also exceptionally angry or upset – this time, however, we will assume that – if not love – the ninety-nine per cent sync ratio was reached because you are _happy_."

"Happy…" Cecile murmured; she was still smiling. "That's good. You _are_ happy, aren't you, Suzaku? In school?"

"Oh, I…" Suzaku nodded. "Yes. I am. It's such a nice school."

"Nobody picks on you?"

Suzaku shrugged.

"It doesn't matter if they do," he said. "I'm still happy."

"What about your friend?" Cecile went on. "The one you told us about?"

"Hm?" Suzaku knew she was referring to Lelouch and hoped that his face hadn't gone crimson again. "Oh, he's fine. We're… we're still friends."

"Aha!" Lloyd suddenly cried, standing up. "That's it, isn't it? The "girlfriend"—"

"There _is_ no girlfriend," Suzaku interrupted impatiently.

"That's my point," Lloyd replied. "You're in love with your friend."

"_Lloyd_!" Cecile erupted. "Stop making such ridiculous assumptions – I've told you before, it's _none_ of our _business_!"

"Oh, it's okay, Cecile," Suzaku said flatly, indicting to the cockpit he was still sitting in. "I can crush him from here."

Lloyd raised his gaze to him – his smile didn't falter.

He said nothing at all, only smiled.

(And Suzaku never forgot it.)

* * *

Um, yeah, so that's that. Next chapter we return to the Suzaku Angst Fest (though I think that present-day Suzaku is only _slightly_ crazier than days-gone-by Suzaku, who has some weird sexual fetish for machines… or something. O.o).

I have _no_ idea why I keep picking loonies as lead characters in my fanfics. Not that _Lelouch_ is exactly all there, either…

Uh, so, I hope you all enjoyed it and felt that it was worth the wait! The next chapter is written (as is the one after it, actually), so here's hoping that the next update will be quicker.

TTYS!

RR xXx

(The Literature Extravaganza continues: _Romeo and Juliet_ AND _The Picture of Dorian Gray_, all in one chapter!!!1!!!!!1!1111!1!)


	8. Ego Et Rex Meus

Well, it seems that my beta, **AutumnDynasty**, was kicked up the ass by the management after my complaint about the service, since she was much, much quicker with this chapter, as you can see. :)

(However, due to the amount that she ravaged this chapter, I only get a silver star and not a gold one. Meanie.)

Actually, I only deserve a silver star for the last chapter, _Inversion Pt II_, as well_. _Now it's true that you all seemed to enjoy it, and I was very happy to read all of your lovely comments about how much you liked reading about Suzaku and Lelouch's sucky first time and the twenty-odd pages of silly-schoolgirly-crush-shenanigans that preceded it…

However… there was a massive continuity error in that chapter, which was pointed out by both **rpln **and **Deus3xMachina** in their reviews. In the C.C./Lelouch segment at the beginning, C.C. spoke to Lelouch about her Geass. For some _bizarre_ reason, I briefly got it into my head that he knew about her Geass at that point in the series when in fact he doesn't find out that her Geass caused people to love her until episode 15 of _Code Geass R2_.

…Yeah. I don't know why I did that. I feel like a dumbass now, hahaha. I am usually very careful about continuity issues like that, so I'm pretty annoyed that it was overlooked by both myself AND my beta. So thanks to rpln and Deus3xMachina for pointing out my stupidity. I can't BELIEVE I did that… O.o

Thanks to everyone who reviewed, whether they pointed out my idiocy or not: **Shinigami866890, souzoulamperouge, rpln, NeoDiji, Infidel Pumpkin, SeraphChronoMage, Bistre Melancholia, teno-hikari, Nusku, Asami-chan37, Crispy Rice, chibi maakochan, setsuko teshiba, teito13, abls, Serena the Hikari of Love, Patet, BakayaroManiac, Tainted Ink and Paper, Aria DC al Fine, Yamiro, PikaNecoMico, KarimaTinCan, amerei, Arkaham, purechidori, 4udball, Star Jinin, Angel Eclipse, Dream-Silver-Haze, Deus3xMachina, MizuiroSnow** and **HereIGoAgain**!

So, yes, now we return to the present, where things are slightly less peachy-keen for Suzaku and Lelouch.

(Not that things were peachy-keen back in the past, exactly. It just _seemed_ like they were.)

The Ghost in the Machine

Ego Et Rex Meus

[I and my king]

He woke up hard.

He fully blamed Lelouch for it. Admittedly, it was a fairly frequent occurrence – and an understandable one, given how often Lelouch haunted his dreams – but he was rather of the opinion that the _real_ Lelouch wrapped around him like this wasn't helping. Maybe it was simply the fact that he was so bony that accentuated it, but Lelouch seemed to be able to get himself into some really awkward positions, particularly when he was sleeping – _that_ hadn't changed.

They were certainly snuggled up very closely, Lelouch lying half on top of him; his head on Suzaku's shoulder, one arm thrown over the Japanese boy's chest and no doubt guilty of being the instigator of the tight intertwinement of their legs. Suzaku could feel Lelouch's thigh pressed against his crotch, which made him think that he was well within his rights to name Lelouch as the culprit for his current condition – even if the immortal boy _was_ still fast asleep.

Suzaku lay there on his back for a while, looking up at the ceiling and watching how it changed colour as the sun rose higher and higher and the sliver of sky leaking in through the crack in the curtains grew less orange and pink, giving way to a clear, vibrant kind of light. He ran his fingers softly through Lelouch's hair, stroking it, and remembered the last time he had woken up next to someone else.

That 'someone else' had been Lelouch, and it had been the morning of the Zero Requiem.

Three years ago. They'd both been the same age – just eighteen – and Lelouch had been clinging to him the way he was now. He took note of the age because it was obvious, with Lelouch so close to him, that he, Suzaku, was now older physically. He'd always been bigger than Lelouch, but that was just his larger frame; the truth was that Suzaku, by birth, was seven months younger than Lelouch, and facially he'd always looked it.

But now he'd overtaken him. Granted, Suzaku was only twenty-one, but at least he _looked_ like a twenty-one year old – Lelouch still looked eighteen, making him seem even smaller against Suzaku.

That time, three years ago – the night preceding the Zero Requiem – had also been the last time Suzaku had ever slept with anyone. Well… He frowned. He said that to himself as though he'd slept with other people besides Lelouch, which actually wasn't true. In fact, the only other person he'd even ever _kissed_ aside from Lelouch was Euphy. And it had been very brief. And only once. And these last few years he'd thought, only once or twice, about kissing Nunnally, but it was only because she looked like her brother, and so he had restrained himself from doing so. After all, she was about the only friend he had left – he could do without making things awkward between them by kissing her whilst pretending she was her own brother…

He'd considered taking Lelouch last night. The immortal boy had been so drugged-up he probably wouldn't have protested – in fact, he probably wouldn't have even _noticed_. But that was one of the reasons Suzaku just hadn't been able to do it. After all, on Refrain or not, this Lelouch was memoryless, having sealed them away; that was, he had rejected his memories of Suzaku in favour of volitional amnesia. So to have slept with him… would have felt _wrong_, somehow. It would have been like sleeping with someone other than Lelouch – which was something Suzaku had never done because he had never _wanted_ to. If he couldn't look down at Lelouch in the midst of it and see the love in his eyes, then he was perfectly willing to forgo it.

(And maybe it had something to with the Code, too. He wasn't repulsed by Lelouch, but the Geass symbols on his skin – the tattoos of his Code – were a different matter entirely. Suzaku didn't know if there was _anything_ he hated more than Geass. Lelouch might have used it to change the world, but it had also been the cause of so many deaths: Euphemia, Shirley, Rolo…)

So he hadn't forced himself on him. He had merely crawled exhaustedly under the covers and pulled Lelouch close and wrapped his arms around him. He hadn't been able to restrain himself from doing that. Lelouch hadn't minded, curling up against Suzaku's chest, either oblivious or nonchalant of the fact that Suzaku's arms hadn't just been protection, but also a cage.

The more awake he became, the more the pain in his shoulder became apparent – starting out as a dull ache but gradually heightening to a sharper severity, burning whenever he shifted even slightly. The cravat was stiff with dried blood, rubbing uncomfortably against his skin. He was in desperate need of a shower – his hair was stuck to his forehead, his skin felt dusty from dry sweat and he still had blood on him in places.

He pushed himself upright with a grimace, laying Lelouch – who didn't stir – gently back onto the mattress. He considered that, after all that, disentangling his legs from Lelouch's might wake him anyway, but he managed to unwind them without Lelouch so much as shifting. He felt a little guilty – he'd always had something of a habit of being the first out of bed, leaving Lelouch sleeping and therefore, by default, the one to wake up alone. "Like a rat deserting a sinking ship," Lelouch had once put it.

He'd said that years ago, grouchier than usual one morning at being awoken by Suzaku clattering around loudly. They'd still been in school. Suzaku had said that his policy of spending the night with Lelouch and therefore waking next to him was his way of making sure that the Britannian boy went to his first lesson everyday. It was true that Lelouch's first lesson attendance certainly _did_ improve, but between the both of them, they'd always acknowledged it as a rather feeble excuse.

Still, why bother to change his ways now – especially when Lelouch didn't even _remember_ his ways?

He slithered out of bed, putting the covers back over Lelouch, and went to the bathroom to shower. He picked the tight knot Lelouch had tied in the cravat undone with some difficulty and left the thing soaking in the sink to get the blood out as he showered. His shoulder suffered for the sudden pummelling of hot water, being disturbed again, and he watched the wisps of blood – curled like cigarette smoke – rinse down the drain with soap and scarlet-tinted water. There wasn't nearly as much of it as there had been last night, though; he didn't want to think about how much blood he'd lost, but signs that it was slowing could only be good.

His hand slipped down without him really thinking about it. He never really thought about this, since it wasn't something that he made a habit of – really more of a mechanical thing, some auto-piloted system initiated by his body now and then to remind him that he _was_ still human. He braced his back against the slippery shower wall and finished with it quickly, barely making a sound when he climaxed. The thing was, he always thought of Lelouch during it, but he'd taught himself not to say his name. He wasn't quite sure why, but the fact that Lelouch was actually very much alive changed nothing. He still didn't say anything at all, least of all his name.

He slid the rest of the way down the wall when he was done, his legs suddenly giving out on him, and curled up at the bottom of the shower, drawing his knees up close to his chest. He held out his hand before him, his own essence making a marbled effect of his palm as the water from the shower rinsed it off.

It had only eased the tightness. It hadn't made him feel any better. He rested his forehead on his knees and gave a deep sigh, still with the shower raining down on him. He suddenly wanted to delay going back out to Lelouch for as long as possible, because Lelouch was a tangible reminder of all that had happened last night.

Of Lloyd.

Had it been worth it? Had getting Lelouch back been worth getting his hands even bloodier? There had been no need for it, had there? He hadn't _needed_ to kill Lloyd… had he?

He wasn't sure he had even _meant_ to. He was reluctant to blame a machine, but he couldn't shake the awful feeling that the Jupiter System Prototype _had_ been the perpetrator – or, at least, its system, the one that interfaced so closely with its pilot's thought process, had been the instigator of the motion that had crushed Lloyd like a paper crane. Suzaku had been so angry about Lloyd's treatment of Lelouch, so disgusted by the new systems he had created, he had certainly _thought_ about killing him and ending it all, but he just couldn't remember if _he_ had actually moved the controls or not.

A sudden shadow fell over him and he snapped his head up, heart hammering. Lelouch was standing on the other side of the glass, looking down at him with no expression on his face whatsoever. Wondering how long he'd been there, Suzaku pushed himself up and pulled back the door, leaning out towards him and raking his wet hair out of his eyes.

"I'm sorry, I was just…" He trailed off, not having a non-idiotic excuse for why he'd been moping at the bottom of the shower, and pointed towards the towel rack. "Could you pass me a towel?"

Lelouch wordlessly handed him one, stepping back as Suzaku got out of the shower and wrapped the towel around his waist. Suzaku thumbed back at the shower, having to push his soaking hair upwards out of his eyes again.

"Uh, it's still running, so… if you want to have a shower… Here." Suzaku started unbuttoning the shirt he'd lent Lelouch to sleep in; but after getting halfway down he suddenly stopped and withdrew his hands again. "Um, well… I'm sure you can do it yourself…" He backed towards the bathroom door. "I'll, uh… I'll be out here when you're done…"

He left the bathroom, shutting the door firmly behind him, leaving Lelouch standing there with his shirt half-unbuttoned, looking rather perplexed by Suzaku's sudden odd behaviour.

Back in the bedroom, Suzaku towelled himself off quickly, rubbing his hair as dry as he could and pulling on clean underwear and the trousers of the Zero outfit before sitting on the edge of the bed and digging around in the First Aid kit for some fresh bandages. He'd pinned them tightly in place and was just pulling on his shirt when Lelouch emerged from the bathroom, back in his shirt and boxers and with his damp hair sticking out in all directions the way it tended to when it was wet. Suzaku smiled to himself as he buttoned his shirt and went to get his waistcoat; he passed Lelouch, who crossed to the middle of the floor, apparently looking for something.

"Lelouch, your crane is right there," Suzaku said, pointing towards the bedside table.

Lelouch ignored him and Suzaku went back to shrugging on his waistcoat. He remembered that he'd left the cravat in the sink and went into a drawer to get another one, looping it under his collar and reaching to his shirt cuff, which was usually where he stuck the pin—

It was gone. He turned to glance about the room, wondering that the hell he'd done with it, and found Lelouch in front of him. The older boy was holding the pin, the deep purple jewel set into it gleaming in the crisp morning light.

It wasn't the first time that Suzaku had noticed how similar a hue of violet it was to Lelouch's eyes.

Of course. Lelouch had pulled the pin out and tossed it onto the carpet when he had undone the cravat to get at Suzaku's shoulder last night. Suzaku held out his palm for it.

"Thanks, Lelouch," he said; but Lelouch didn't give it to him. Instead he reached up, irritably fixed Suzaku's collar the way he always did and then pinned the cravat himself.

He moved away again before Suzaku could catch hold of him and went to sit on the bed, watching intently as Suzaku finished dressing, buttoning the blue-and-gold velvet jacket and throwing on the cloak.

"It's still pretty early," Suzaku murmured, looking at the clock. "You must be hungry. I'll go and get us some breakfast, okay?"

Lelouch gave a nod and reached for his crane, playing idly with its flimsy wings. Suzaku hesitated, decided that it was probably safe to leave him, picked up his mask and left the room. He made his way down through the house quickly, not wanting to leave Lelouch for too long, thinking that he probably should have shut him in the cupboard or something until he came back…

The house was pretty much deserted at this hour. He came across one of the maids making her way across the east wing landing, but otherwise he met with no-one until he almost collided with Cornelia in the entrance hall. She was by herself, fully-dressed and didn't look very happy to see him.

"I apologise, Your Highness," he said, bowing to her and then moving out of her way hastily.

"Lord Zero," she replied curtly. She said nothing else and passed him, continuing across the hall and out of the door without a backwards glance.

Suzaku watched her leave, wondering exactly where she was going at this time. Still, he supposed that her going _out_ wasn't necessarily a bad thing – it meant she wasn't skulking around _here_.

He didn't see anyone at all the rest of the way down to the kitchen or on the way back. Lelouch peered around the doorframe of the bathroom as Suzaku came back into the room with the tray, something which the Japanese boy was pleased to see – memories or not, Lelouch clearly realised the danger he was in of being recaptured and had hidden. He ventured out when he saw that it was Suzaku, though, following him to the desk to see what was on the tray.

"Eat as much as you want," Suzaku said, gesturing to the assortment of fruit and toast he'd brought up as he pulled off his mask again. "I'll go and make some tea."

He picked up a pear for himself, sinking his teeth into it as he went over to the dresser to plug in the kettle. He glanced at Lelouch over his shoulder, watching him choose a peach and bite into it. He _must_ have actually been pretty hungry, since he took a huge chunk out of the fruit – he usually had such a delicate, finicky way of eating things.

Unless three years of having only C.C. for a companion, living primarily off Pizza Hut, had taught him to eat a lot very quickly lest he starve when C.C. ate the other nine slices while he was carefully nibbling at his first one.

…He _assumed_ that Lelouch had been with C.C., anyway. It made sense that the two of them would have gone off together after the Zero Requiem, probably into hiding. But if that was the case… where was she now? Why hadn't she come back with him? Had something happened to her or had he just left her behind?

Of course, he didn't even know why _Lelouch_ had come back in the first place, whether C.C. was in tow or not. They were both questions that Suzaku wanted to ask – why Lelouch had come back; where C.C. was – but he didn't voice them, because he didn't think Lelouch would remember.

He'd also established by now that Lelouch wasn't anywhere near as talkative as he had once been, either.

He came back over to the desk with the tea. Lelouch was sitting on the desk's surface next to the tray, swinging his bare legs like a little kid; he'd finished his peach and was munching quite contentedly on some toast. Suzaku was pleased to see him eating, hoping that it would give him the strength to not be reliant on Refrain; of course, he had no clue what Lloyd had been feeding him. Enough, he assumed, for if Lelouch was skinnier than usual, it was not by much, but either way, Suzaku had been concerned that the dependency on Refrain might have dulled the Britannian boy's appetite.

Maybe this meant he was beginning to overpower his need for it.

"Thankyou," Lelouch murmured as Suzaku handed him a teacup.

Suzaku felt his heart twist when he heard him speak. He wanted him to say something else. He wanted him to talk so that he could listen to him. It didn't matter what he said. Suzaku was used to Lelouch talking. It was abnormal for him to be so quiet – he almost never shut up, _always_ having some kind of answer for whatever anyone said.

But Lelouch had made it clear that he wasn't much in the mood for conversation, and Suzaku didn't want to insult him by trying to get him to repeat things as if he was a small child or a parrot.

So he simply gave a nod of his own, said "You're welcome," and sank into the chair at the desk with his own tea. He started on a slice of toast, chewing it mechanically. He wasn't as hungry as Lelouch seemed to be, but it was true that he had absolutely no idea when Lelouch had last eaten.

Suzaku couldn't help but be amused when Lelouch stopped swinging his legs idly to and fro and crossed them instead, making a rather elegant show of slowly putting the right one over the left. Lelouch might have lost his memories but he certainly hadn't lost any of his little habits (although a lot of those little habits of his were what Suzaku had taken an instant dislike to the day he had first met Lelouch, thinking him a stuck-up little—).

Lelouch caught Suzaku smiling at him and looked at him curiously, tilting his head questioningly. Suzaku looked away quickly, suddenly embarrassed to hold his gaze; but when he sneakily glanced back he saw that Lelouch was smiling at _him_.

It was the first smile that had graced his face since Suzaku had rescued him.

He really did have the most beautiful smile, pretty even when it wasn't sincere. No wonder almost every girl at Ashford Academy had been tripping over themselves just to get his attention. Sometimes Suzaku had felt kind of guilty about having been the one to ensnare him, particularly when it came to Shirley, but Lelouch had always insisted that he thought of Shirley as a very good friend and nothing more, and Suzaku couldn't argue with that.

Not that he'd have been exactly willing to give Lelouch away to Shirley (or anyone else) anyway.

This smile was real, however. Suzaku could tell. He was fairly sure that only he and Nunnally had ever seen it.

He put down his teacup and rose. Lelouch blinked at him over his own before slowly putting it down on the desk too, copying Suzaku as though he perceived there to be some important reason behind the Japanese boy's motions. Suzaku was glad that he'd put the cup down (because it meant that it wasn't in his way); he gently got his hand underneath Lelouch's right thigh and uncrossed his legs, parting them just wide enough to enable him to get between them and thus closer to Lelouch. He put his hands to the Britannian boy's face, tilted his head upwards and kissed him.

At first Lelouch didn't react at all. Then he slowly reached up and put his hands on Suzaku's chest, as if considering pushing him away – he exerted no force, however, as though changing his mind the more Suzaku persisted with the kiss. Then he suddenly gave in, opening his mouth and kissing back.

And then, just as Suzaku had begun to slide his hands downwards to get a better grip on him, Lelouch abruptly pulled his head away again, breaking the kiss very thoroughly. Suzaku thought he might struggle and try to squirm out of his grasp, but Lelouch laid his head against the Japanese boy's shoulder, much to his surprise. Granted, perhaps kissing him was pushing it a little considering that Lelouch had no memories, but for some peculiar reason he didn't seem to mind very close contact such as this.

So Suzaku wrapped his arms around him, letting Lelouch hide his face in the oversized pointed collar of Zero's cloak like a small child. It was ironic, he felt, to see this kind of clingy, vulnerable behaviour from someone who had enslaved the entire world and then plotted his own demise in order to set it free. They'd called him the Demon Emperor, a devil, a monster – and, in a lot of ways, they were names that Suzaku couldn't disagree with. Lelouch bore only an angel's smile; he was angelic in no other way.

But he was pure. When he lied, he lied wholeheartedly. When he told the truth, he truly meant what he said. When he said that he was going to change the world, he fully intended to – and he _did_, changing it beyond all recognition.

…Except, apparently, he didn't _die_ wholeheartedly.

(Not like Lloyd.)

Suzaku could feel Lelouch quivering in his arms and wondered if he was crying; he loosened his grasp on him and pushed him back, holding him by the elbows so that he could look at him. The immortal boy wasn't crying – on the contrary, his eyes were wide and dry. Suzaku could hear the tempo of his breathing picking up, could feel him beginning to shake quite badly, and got the sinking feeling that Lelouch was entering withdrawals again.

His suspicion was all but confirmed when Lelouch suddenly clamped his hand against his own left forearm, digging his fingers into it even through the sleeve of the shirt. He leaned forwards, seeming as though he wanted to get down from the desk, but with Suzaku between his legs he couldn't; so he took his hand from his sleeve again and planted both palms against Suzaku's chest as he had before, pushing at him.

He couldn't move him even an inch.

When he realised that Suzaku wasn't budging, effortlessly resisting his attempts to move him, he switched to a different tactic and beat him with his fists in an echo of a childish tantrum; Suzaku immediately snatched both of his wrists in one hand, stopping him.

"Don't hit me, Lelouch," he said coldly. "If you want down, ask."

He was stalling, of course – that was why he wouldn't move even though he knew perfectly _well_ that Lelouch wanted down from the desk. He was loathe to give him more Refrain to stop the withdrawals even though he knew he was going to have to.

Lelouch didn't ask – in fact, he didn't do anything apart from suddenly go quite limp, his head dipping, Suzaku pretty much holding him upright by his wrists. He was still shaking, but since that was an involuntary action, Suzaku didn't feel that it counted as a response.

He gave a sigh – dealing with a memoryless, drug-addicted immortal boy who also happened to be his thought-dead best friend/lover was absolutely exhausting – and lifted Lelouch around his back and waist, carrying him over to the bed. He put him down gently on top of the unmade sheets, Lelouch lying in exactly the position Suzaku left him in like a ragdoll. Suzaku merely shook his head at him and went to get the Refrain from across the other side of the room. He picked up the instrument used for administering the drug from the floor – it had been lying where he'd dropped it, the canister of Refrain still securely punched into it. Over half of the crimson liquid drug still remained within the narrow glass tube.

He came back over to Lelouch and sat on the edge of the bed next to him. Lelouch had moved now, sprawled out face-down on the bedsheets, his right hand clamped down on his left forearm again. Suzaku put the implement in his mouth, holding it between his teeth, as he took hold of Lelouch under his arms and lifted him, pulling him into a kneeling position on the mattress.

"Look, I've got some Refrain," he said, taking it from his mouth and dangling it by the plunger. "I'll give you some to make the pain stop, okay?"

Lelouch offered no response whatsoever, slumping against Suzaku. No longer needing to hold Lelouch up with his hands, the Japanese boy took the opportunity to take Lelouch's left arm and roll up the shirt sleeve to get at his veins, lining up the row of tiny needles. He pushed down the plunger, feeling Lelouch sag against him even further, watching the level of blood-red liquid slowly sink downwards—

"_Stop it_!" Lelouch suddenly screeched, wrenching his arm back with a strength that took Suzaku by surprise. "Stop poisoning me!"

Suzaku blinked at him. It was the most he'd heard Lelouch say in all the time since he'd rescued him, and certainly the most shocking thing he'd said. He looked down at the Refrain in his hand, hating it more than ever.

"I… I'm sorry, Le-Lelouch," he stammered. He threw the drug to the floor. "I-I wasn't trying to… I mean, I was just… I thought I was _helping_ you…" He looked up at Lelouch again desperately. "I'm _sorry_!"

He reached towards Lelouch, but the smaller boy shrank back out of his range. The Refrain top-up had already begun to take hold, for that misty look had started to dull the bright violet of Lelouch's eyes, but he still seemed to have enough about him to push himself right up against the headboard, drawings his knees up protectively.

"Lelouch, I'm sorry," Suzaku said again, though he went no closer to him. "Please forgive me. I just… I didn't want to see you suffer."

Lelouch said nothing, and after a moment he looked away from Suzaku. He lifted the covers, got under them and lay down on his side, his back to the Japanese boy.

Another of his habits. Suzaku knew that Lelouch, amnesiac and drugged-up and whatever else, was seriously furious with him and thought it would be a good idea not to disturb him for a while. He'd let him sleep his temper off and then try apologising profusely again.

He wasn't sure if he exactly _deserved_ to be forgiven, but he hadn't been trying to hurt Lelouch, or "poison" him. He truly had been giving him Refrain because he'd thought that a gradual weaning-off would be kinder.

Trouble was, Suzaku had to admit that, as hard as he tried, he wasn't very good at being kind to people.

He was much better at killing them.

—

Lelouch was still asleep. Suzaku had thought that perhaps he was simply pretending to be sleeping so that he had an effortless way of not having to give the Japanese boy his attention for a long period of time; but after leaning over him and taking note of the slow, even breathing pattern, Suzaku had concluded that Lelouch truly _was_ asleep, probably knocked out by the drugs.

Not having to watch him had its advantages – it gave him the time to pound Lelouch's clothing into submission in the sink with soap and water, rinsing all the blood out of it. Eventually the water had run clear enough for him to be satisfied that he'd gotten as much of the blood out of it as he could and he'd hung it over the shower door to dry. He had no idea if Lelouch would be pleased or not – perhaps he had no intention of ever wearing it again – but he couldn't help but notice that this prisoner's garb seemed to fit Lelouch better than any of Suzaku's own clothes probably would. The shirt he'd lent him was, after all, for a twenty-one year old who'd been bigger than Lelouch when he was the same physical age as him anyway, which explained why it was so big on him, ending about halfway down his thighs.

Besides, C.C. had seemed to like wearing her prisoner's outfit.

After that he'd cleared up his room a little, folding up the soldier's uniform he'd stolen and stowing it right at the back of the wardrobe; he sat staring at the Refrain for a while, wondering what he should do with it. Eventually he just put it back in the drawer he'd taken it from and kicked it shut irritably.

He went to sit on the edge of the bed, picking up the crane from the sheets – he hadn't noticed it, its whiteness concealing it in the folds of the bedsheets, until he sank onto the mattress, suddenly feeling very drained. He held it in his palm and looked at it. It was a little bit clumsy, making it tip forwards a little – the pain of the bullet in his shoulder had made it difficult to execute the usual level of control over his hands that he possessed. It had come out alright, though. It _resembled_ a crane, which was a start – the method of making them was too well tattooed into him for him to fail to fold one, no matter how badly injured he was.

He felt Lelouch shift and glanced down at him over his shoulder. The dark-haired boy had turned over to face Suzaku, his eyes open. He looked up at the Japanese boy for a long moment, holding his gaze, and then closed his eyes again. He did reach out his hand, however, blindly reaching for Suzaku's, in which the crane was sitting. His thin fingers closed around the little paper bird and he snatched it away, his hand disappearing back under the covers.

Suzaku couldn't help the faint little smile that stealthily crept its way onto his face.

The sudden sound of tyres on gravel brought him back to himself, however; Lelouch opened his eyes as well, lifting his head from the pillow. He pushed himself up, starting to crawl towards the edge of the bed so that he could peek out between the still-drawn curtains, but Suzaku pressed him back as he rose himself.

"Stay out of sight," he murmured; making sure to block Lelouch with his cloak as he parted the curtains a little himself.

Three cars had pulled up onto the huge gravel driveway of the house; one white and two black, all expensive. As Suzaku watched, the driver's door to the white car opened and a man in high-rank Britannian military attire stepped out. He went around to the passenger side and opened the door, bowing as the car's other occupant got out.

Suzaku felt his stomach sink as he watched Cornelia Li Britannia straighten up and toss back of her long wave of dark cerise hair.

Trying not to let Cornelia's re-entrance in a white Jaguar accompanied by some Britannian Army big-shot rattle him too much, Suzaku turned his attention to the other cars. Out of the second black car emerged a single man in a sharp black suit. From the third came another guy in a suit, Cecile Croomy and Schneizel.

Lloyd. It had to be because of Lloyd. Suzaku turned and held the curtains shut behind his back, his heart thudding.

It wasn't like he had expected to get away with it. It wasn't even like he thought that he _should_ get away with it. He'd murdered Lloyd Asplund. He deserved to be punished for it.

But he looked at Lelouch. It wasn't that he blamed him, but it _had_ been because of him – Suzaku had only crossed paths with Lloyd because he'd gone to save Lelouch. If Lelouch was recaptured now – so quickly and so easily – then all of it was worthless: Lloyd really _would_ have died for nothing.

Suzaku didn't care what they did to _him_, but he wasn't going to just hand Lelouch over to them.

…But what had brought them here? Only Cornelia and Schneizel would know that the missing test subject was actually Lelouch. Unless…

…They didn't think that _Nunnally_ had orchestrated it to save her brother, did they?

As he stood there looking at Lelouch, wondering just what the hell he should do, there was a sudden knock on his door.

"Lord Zero," came one of the maid's voices, "Lady Nunnally requests your presence in her office. She says that it is urgent."

"I'll be right there," Suzaku replied as expressionlessly as he could manage.

He went to get his mask from the desk as he heard the maid's footsteps fade away, pulling it on and turning towards Lelouch. If he was to assume that all the people who had just arrived by car – including Cornelia and Schneizel – were going to be present in Nunnally's office, now would probably be the best time for Lelouch to escape. However…

Suzaku sighed at him. Lelouch was still pretty high on Refrain, and without his memories as well… No, there was no doubt about it – he wouldn't get very far in this state. He didn't even have his Geass anymore. It was true that his Code would prevent him from being killed, but that was the least of Suzaku's worries. Lelouch had made an extremely public enemy of himself during his time as emperor, which was why he'd presumably been forced to go into hiding after his "assassination". Tossing him out onto the street with a hand-drawn map to C.C. and even the most _non_-white-and-gold clothes that Suzaku could find was just asking for it.

So he decided to hide Lelouch, go down to Nunnally's office, deny everything, come back up for Lelouch and get him the hell out of here before Cornelia banged the door down. After he'd gotten Lelouch someplace safe, he could come back and confess to killing Lloyd.

It wasn't a _great_ plan, but it was all he had.

He crossed to the bed, took Lelouch's arm and half-lifted, half-dragged him from the bed, pulling him across the room to the wardrobe. He opened it, let go of the immortal boy, went to the bathroom to retrieve his damp clothing, came back with it and tossed it unceremoniously into the bottom of the wardrobe.

"They've come looking for you," Suzaku said in a low voice, pushing Lelouch into the wardrobe as well. "I doubt they'll search the room, but just in case, I want you to stay in here and be quiet. I'll come back for you as soon as I can, okay?"

Lelouch nodded, surprisingly accepting about being shoved into a wardrobe; he sat down and made himself comfortable as Suzaku shut the doors.

Suzaku didn't lock the room – he knew it was a risk, but he figured that if someone _did_ start searching the rooms whilst he was occupied in Nunnally's office, it would be even _more_ suspicious if his room was found to be locked. He swiftly made his way down to Nunnally's office, where only yesterday he had sat on the edge of her desk as she tried to fill out paperwork, joking with her about Medieval torture instruments and how much he deserved to be subjected to them.

It seemed so long ago now.

He knocked and entered in almost the same motion. As he'd expected, every single one of the menagerie who'd turned up on the drive not even five minutes ago was now gathered in the office, Cornelia, Schneizel, Cecile and the Britannian Army representative on one side and the two suits on the other. Nunnally sat behind her desk in her wheelchair, biting her lip worriedly. She looked up sharply as he came into the room, her expression growing no less concerned; but she gestured to the space next to her, absent of his presence.

There was silence as he made his way up the room; he was reminded uncomfortably of his first knighting ceremony, when he had walked up the centre of the crowd as he did now, looking only at Euphemia because she was the only one smiling at him.

(Although Lloyd had smiled too – he had even initiated the applause.)

Nunnally was not smiling, but when he reached her side she slipped her hand off the arm of her wheelchair and reached down for his, gripping his fingers behind the desk, out of sight to all those who stood before it.

"Now that Lord Zero is present, we may proceed," Cornelia said coldly. She turned towards Nunnally. "Lady Nunnally, my sister, you may wonder why we bring this issue before you instead of the Prime Minister, Ohgi Kaname, considering that it regards relations between Japan and Britannia."

"I assume that it is not a political issue," Nunnally responded stoically. She looked around at everyone in turn. "However, you have still withheld much of the information from me. I cannot conclude that I am indeed the best person to deal with whatever the situation happens to be until I know what it is."

"Lloyd's dead," Cecile said bluntly, her voice shaking. She was extremely pale, her eyes ringed with red as though she had been crying, but her tone was firm. "And it wasn't an accident."

Nunnally blinked.

"Someone… murdered Earl Asplund?"

"We presume so," one of the men in suits replied. "My partner Detective Ryan here and myself have been on the scene since six-thirty this morning. All security cameras were deactivated at around midnight last night using Asplund's own passcode, so there is no visual evidence of what happened. We can conclude from the scene, however, that there were two guns, both of which were left in the hangar beneath Asplund's office – recovered bullets indicate that both weapons were fired."

"Is that how he died?" Nunnally asked, clutching tighter at Suzaku's fingers. "He was shot?"

"No." The Britannian Army representative shook his head. "He was crushed by the Knightmare known as the Jupiter System Prototype."

Nunnally gripped Suzaku's hand tighter still; he could feel her shaking a little.

"The Jupiter System Prototype was one of the two things stolen by the killer," the second detective added. "It was recovered a little way off from the lab, presumably having been used for the assailant to make their escape."

Cecile raised her head sharply at this point.

"Two?" she asked. "What else was taken?"

"A test subject," Cornelia said brusquely. "However, that is highly-classified information, available only to those of high rank in the Britannian Army. My apologies, sister."

"I—" Cecile began (because clearly, despite being of high rank in the Britannian Army, she knew about as much as Nunnally did).

"The test subject accounts for one of the three blood samples found at the scene," the first detective cut in. "However, it does not match any in our database or in that of the Britannian military. There's no match."

"…It was _human_?" Nunnally asked faintly.

"That is not what is important," Cornelia snapped. "The important one is the blood found in both the hangar and the recovered Jupiter System Prototype."

Suzaku felt his heart sink. It was true that they wouldn't have been able to recover any of his fingerprints on either of the guns because the solider uniform he'd been wearing had had gloves; but he'd been bleeding all over the place, hadn't he…?

He watched Cornelia take a white file from the army guy and bring it to the desk, where she opened it and slid it across towards Nunnally and Suzaku so that they could both see it.

It was Suzaku's own Britannian Army file, with hand-written records of all his promotions and knighthoods clipped to his basic information sheet, signed by Euphemia, Charles and Lelouch, respectively. There was a stamp reading 'DECEASED' across his file picture – he'd watched Lelouch put it there the day after he'd died and survived his final battle with Kallen.

Nunnally took her hand from his and ran her fingertips over the various sheets and slips that detailed Suzaku Kururugi's military career – all that was left of him to the rest of the world. As he'd observed a hundred times before, Nunnally regressed to seeing with her hands when she found something hard to understand.

"It's a perfect match," the Britannian Army hotshot said. "We still have it on file. It's Kururugi's blood, no doubt about it."

Cecile staggered back a bit, her expression torn between agony and confusion.

Nunnally looked up.

"Suzaku Kururugi is dead," she said in a hard voice. "He was killed three years ago by Kallen Kozuki while in-service as my brother's knight."

"He's dead, is he?" Cornelia replied lightly – and she turned her icy violet eyes right on Suzaku.

Well, he'd always had a feeling that she suspected. He stood his ground, not letting her spook him. He glanced down the room at Cecile, who was looking back at him with a new brand of horror on her face. Clearly Lloyd had never shared his suspicions with her…

In contrast, Nunnally wouldn't look at him; instead she closed the file and pushed it back across the desk.

"Yes," she answered. "He's dead. The result must be wrong. Suzaku couldn't have done this."

"Is that so?" Cornelia handed the file back to the army guy. "Then, Lady Nunnally, if you're so sure that the results are wrong and that Kururugi is as dead as you say he is, I am sure that you won't mind if I request that Lord Zero removes his mask."

Suzaku didn't really know why Nunnally was covering for him when she must surely be aware that the test results weren't remotely wrong – or if Nunnally even knew herself – but he had _no_ idea how she was going to get him out of this one. Either of them refusing would simply heighten the suspicion.

"I wouldn't _mind_ at all," Nunnally replied. "However, I am afraid that your request cannot be granted, sister. Zero is a symbol of revolution against oppression, no matter who wears the mask – and since he is considered a symbol rather than an identity, he was granted immunity to any order which requires him – or _her_ – to be reduced to any single identity. It was granted by Prime Minister Ohgi Kaname when Zero became my guardian. Zero may ignore any order to remove his mask and cease to be Zero." Nunnally looked right at her half-sister. "If you wish for the immunity to be repealed, you will have to go to Prime Minister Kaname himself. If you bring this case to him, it is highly likely that he will retract it and you will be able to order Zero to remove his mask. Until then, I am afraid that there is nothing anyone can do."

Suzaku didn't think he'd ever seen Cornelia at such a loss for something to say.

"Lord Zero," Nunnally went on, "you may leave. I do not think we will require your presence any further."

Suzaku got the impression that she wasn't anywhere _near_ done with him and intended to thoroughly grill him the moment they were alone, but he nodded, bowed to her and left. Cornelia glared at him as he passed her but he paid her no heed, focusing on keeping himself calm and collected until he was out of the room and down the corridor.

The moment he got around the corner he bolted, dashing up to his room as fast as he could. He didn't know if what Nunnally had said was true or not but right now he didn't care, grateful that she'd managed to so skilfully get him out of having to reveal himself.

He locked his bedroom door once he was in, wrenched off his mask and went to the wardrobe, sick with worry that he was going to open it and find that Lelouch was gone.

He wasn't. He blinked up at Suzaku as the doors opened; Suzaku crouched down to his level, sighing with relief.

"Are you okay?" he breathed. "Did anyone come into the room?"

Lelouch shook his head. Suzaku gave a satisfied nod, took Lelouch by the wrist and stood, pulling him up and out of the wardrobe.

"Come on, we have to get you out of here," Suzaku went on distractedly, beginning to go through the wardrobe. "I don't know how much longer Nunnally's going to be able to stall them…" He pulled out a pair of black jeans and handed them to Lelouch. "Here, put these on. I don't suppose you have _any_ idea where C.C. is?"

Lelouch merely tilted his head at him.

"Thought not," Suzaku sighed. It was frustrating, though – if only he had some way of contacting C.C., he could give her back her "lost property" and rest assured that Lelouch would be safe with her, provided that he didn't wander off again. He had no idea what he was going to do with Lelouch otherwise. Perhaps he could find a convent of kindly nuns to look after the ex-Demon Emperor or something…

He pulled Lelouch's black outfit from the bottom of the wardrobe to have a look at it – it was still pretty damp, not really suitable for wearing. He folded it, tucking the chains inside; and looked over his shoulder at Lelouch, who had put the jeans on and was heading towards the bed to retrieve his shoes. They too were black, very flat and simple, with no embellishments or fastenings. Lelouch hitched up the jeans, which were sliding already, sat down on the edge of the bed and slipped on his shoes. He looked up at Suzaku expectantly.

Well, at least he wasn't sulking anymore. Granted (Suzaku thought with a grimace), Lelouch had every _right_ to be sulking, but dealing with him was easier when he was in a more cooperative mood such as this. He obviously realised that Suzaku was the only thing standing between him and a one-way ticket back to Lab Rat Land.

He heard the sound of rubber on gravel again, picking up his mask and putting it back on as he went to the window. He pulled back the curtains properly, seeing one of the black cars pull away. One of the detectives, Schneizel and Cecile were getting into the other black car and the army big-shot was opening the passenger door of the white Jaguar for Cornelia, who was looking up at the house.

It was impossible to tell, but Suzaku got the impression that she was glaring right at him.

He was prepared to bet that they were all off in force to get Ohgi to repeal his Zero Immunity Act, whether it was real or not, but at this precise moment he considered that a blessing – it meant they weren't in the house and he could get Lelouch out safely.

He watched the last car – the white one – pull out of the drive, drew the curtains again and sank onto the bed without another deep sigh of relief. He flopped onto his back and closed his eyes, allowing himself a much-needed moment of peace to think.

He didn't get it, though; a knock at the door made him bolt upright again.

"It's me," he heard Nunnally say. She didn't sound very happy.

He heaved himself up and went to get the door, noting that Lelouch had darted into the bathroom. He left him, thinking maybe it was better if Nunnally didn't see him, at least not immediately.

Nunnally didn't look at him as she entered the room, rather gazing at the floor before her wheelchair. Suzaku shut the door again and leaned against it, saying nothing.

"Take off your mask," Nunnally ordered finally.

Suzaku reached up and obediently pulled it off. She looked up at him for a long moment, and then sharply looked away, her amethyst eyes filling with angry tears.

"It's true, you know," she said bitterly. "What I told Cornelia. No-one can make you take your mask off if you don't want to. Ohgi knows the importance of Zero's symbolism better than anyone."

"Why… why haven't you ever told me?" Suzaku asked quietly.

"Because it's mine and Ohgi's way of protecting you," Nunnally replied. "It's not for you to abuse."

"I haven't—"

"What was Zero doing last night?" Nunnally pressed. She was white with anger. "Tell me the truth, Suzaku, because I just lied for you and I need to know why I did it. Don't get me wrong, you know that I love you – but if you really did kill Earl Asplund, my friendship doesn't excuse it."

"I know that." Suzaku took a deep breath. "Yes, I did kill him, Nunnally. I broke into his lab last night – not as Zero, but as myself. I didn't premeditate killing him, but I admit that I _did_ murder him regardless."

"Why? Because of the demonstration? I know you were angry about the experiments, but—"

"_No_," Suzaku interrupted. "No, it wasn't that. As angry as it made me, I wouldn't have killed him over that."

Nunnally went quiet for a while.

"They said you stole something," she said finally, but her voice was quieter still. "A test subject – the one whose blood they couldn't find a match for." She looked up at him. "_Was_ it human?"

Suzaku nodded.

Nunnally bit at her lip.

"Did you rescue him? …Or her?"

"Yes, I rescued him." Suzaku looked over Nunnally's shoulder at the bathroom door; Lelouch had been peeking around it, but the moment he caught Suzaku's eye, he vanished again. "…Do you want to see him?"

Nunnally blinked at him.

"You brought him _here_?"

Suzaku nodded and passed her, crossing the room towards the en suite. He heard Nunnally swivel her chair around as he stepped into the bathroom to hunt for Lelouch, who had backed out of sight against the shower cubicle.

"Hey," Suzaku said softly, offering him his hand, "come and see your sister, Lelouch."

Lelouch hesitated, but finally allowed Suzaku to lead him out into the bedroom; clutching at Suzaku's hand as his sister had done when he saw her.

Nunnally said nothing at all as Suzaku brought Lelouch out of the bathroom; her lilac eyes widened but although her lips parted, she seemed unable to make a sound. Suzaku saw the tears well in her eyes again, but this time they were not angry, though whether they were of sorrow or joy or simply shock, he couldn't fathom.

In the end, all she did was reach out her hand. Suzaku brought Lelouch forwards and put his slender hand in hers, watching how she put her other one on top, tracing the shape of his fingers, the feel of the thin bones and tendons beneath his skin. Her eyes remained wide open, now with the tears running down her face, but they were sightless and she was silent.

It was odd, but as Suzaku watched them, the only thing he could think was that they looked like twins now they were both physically the same age.

Nunnally dipped her head, her shoulders shaking, and she finally made a noise – that of sobbing. Suzaku started towards her, but to his surprise, Lelouch beat him to it, lowering himself on one knee to her level and tilting her head up again. He wiped her eyes with the cuff of the shirt that Suzaku had lent him. Suzaku didn't know if Lelouch actually remembered her or just didn't want to see her crying, whoever she was.

It didn't work – the action just made her cry even more. She was smiling too, however, first at her brother, and then up at Suzaku.

"H-how… how did he…?" She couldn't finish.

Suzaku went to get her a proper handkerchief to dry her eyes with as he answered her:

"He has a Code." He came back with the handkerchief and gave it to her; then used the same motion to put his hand to Lelouch's forehead and rake his fringe upwards so that Nunnally could see the Geass insignia on it. "He must have taken C.C.'s before the final stage of the Zero Requiem."

Nunnally looked at her brother again.

"You're immortal?" she asked softly.

He didn't say anything, just as Suzaku had expected.

"I'm afraid he's not very talkative," the Japanese boy said. "He sealed his memories away. I don't think he remembers anything."

Nunnally's gaze snapped back to Suzaku.

"He… he doesn't even remember you and me?" she whispered.

Suzaku shrugged wearily.

"If he does, he's hiding it extremely well," he sighed. "I have no idea why he sealed his memories, or why he came back, or where C.C. is, or—"

"How did Lloyd get him?" Nunnally interrupted, still clinging very tightly to her brother's hand.

"Cornelia caught him on Kaminejima about two weeks ago, according to Schneizel. I don't know why he was there, or why _Cornelia_ was there, for that matter. After capturing him she handed him over to Lloyd for experimentation purposes – Schneizel said she's been hunting for him these past three years, ever since she realised that he wasn't in the coffin we buried."

Nunnally didn't have anything to say to that. Suzaku knew the feeling. After another long moment, however, she raised her head again, meeting Suzaku's jade eyes.

"The Knightmare they found your blood in was the Jupiter System Prototype," she said. "That's the same Knightmare that Anya piloted two days ago at the demonstration at Ashford Academy. The one that affected her so badly…"

Suzaku nodded.

"Lloyd explained it all to me last night," he said in a low voice. "I presume ever since the war ended, the Engineering Corps haven't needed to pool all their money and resources into keeping the Lancelot in top fighting condition, so they've been spending them elsewhere instead. They were doing research into other power sources for Knightmares, such as the systems in the Jupiter and Mars System Prototypes – however, Lloyd was doing more research behind the backs of the others. He was trying to integrate Lelouch's Code into the Jupiter System Prototype in the hopes of creating some kind of AI–Knightmare. His theory was that if the pilot accepted the Knightmare less as a machine and more as a partner, synchronisation rate would increase and overall performance in both man and machine would be better. It didn't quite get to the level he wanted it to, but he really _was_ getting somewhere with it, Nunnally." Suzaku gave a little shake of his head. "It was pretty scary. I don't know if killing him solved anything, but…"

Nunnally gave a nod, biting at her bottom lip.

"So… did the Jupiter's system somehow… _copy_ Lelouch's Code?" she asked carefully, looking again at the crimson mark visible on her brother's forehead between the fronds of his black hair. "Is that what affected Anya?"

Suzaku gave a nod of his own. It was one of the things he'd come to appreciate very much about Nunnally – she was very perceptive, generally not needing to have things explained down to every last detail for her to be able to understand.

"It happened to me, too, when I tried to pilot it," he said. "It affects people who have ever been under Geass for a long period of time or who are still under its influence. Anya and I fall into each of those categories, respectively."

"I don't know why they still insist on manufacturing Knightmare Frames," Nunnally said scornfully. She looked at Lelouch again. "After everything you did, Lelouch, everything you sacrificed for a world where things wouldn't be governed by fighting, they still insist on building those horrible things…"

Lelouch merely blinked back at her; he was sitting on the floor beside her chair now, still with his hand between hers.

"Nunnally," Suzaku said desperately, "I don't know what to do. I killed Lloyd, I mean… I don't think in any way that I deserve to get away with murdering him, but… I have to get Lelouch out of here. If he's found, he'll be sent back for experimentation again, I'm sure of it. That's what they did to C.C., as well." He looked down at Lelouch himself. "You're right, Nunnally – it isn't fair. After everything he did, this is how he gets repaid."

"He made a monster of himself," Nunnally murmured. "And monsters are hated."

_We are, aren't we?_

"What should I do, Nunnally?" Suzaku asked. "I don't want you to think I'm a coward. I'm not afraid of confessing, I'm not afraid of being punished – but I want to make sure Lelouch is safe first. I can't admit to anything until I'm sure that he's not going to be subjected to… _that_ again."

Nunnally met his gaze again.

"Suzaku," she said, "even if you saved my brother, and even if you stopped Lloyd from making more monsters the world doesn't need, I don't condone what you did. However… I think you're the only one who can protect Lelouch. He chose you as his knight for a reason, and I know that he wanted you to be _my_ knight as well, before you accepted Euphy's request."

"Doesn't it concern you that all three people whose knight I have been are dead – or _have_ died, anyway?"

"Don't change the subject," Nunnally said shortly. "Suzaku, I'm not going to tell you to run. If you'd rather stay and confess to being Lloyd's murderer, of course I will not think ill of you for it, because I think that would probably be the _right_ thing to do. However… Lelouch does not belong in this world anymore. As his knight, isn't it your job to make sure he gets safely back to where he belongs?"

"I'm not his knight anymore."

"Why not?" Nunnally looked from him to her brother and back again. "Neither of you are dead."

Maybe he'd been playing an unfair game. Of course Nunnally would be biased. Of course she'd choose saving Lelouch. Of course she'd choose saving Suzaku.

He gave a nod and bowed to her.

"As you wish, Lady Nunnally," he said quietly.

He went to the wardrobe and dug around until he found an old rucksack of his that he'd used years ago, opening it and putting Lelouch's damp, folded clothing into the bottom of it.

"Leave the Zero outfit," Nunnally said. "I expect Cornelia _will_ come back with Ohgi's permission to repeal the immunity if they have "proof" that Suzaku Kururugi is in fact alive and is responsible for Lloyd Asplund's murder. I'll find someone else to wear it."

Suzaku paused in his scant packing, looking over his shoulder at her.

"Nunnally, you don't have to do that."

But Nunnally shook her head.

"I can't leave you to do all the work. I want to help protect him too. Please – leave the outfit."

"Alright." Suzaku stood, rifled through his wardrobe for the darkest, most demure clothes he had and took them into the bathroom to change. He wouldn't have cared about changing in front of Lelouch, but he didn't want embarrass Nunnally by starting to strip off while she was sitting right there.

These were just the kind of casual clothes he wore in his room very late at night when no-one but Nunnally was likely to come looking for him. He didn't even wear bright colours anymore – the loose combat trousers were a dark grey and the long-sleeved T-shirt was black. He splashed some cold water on his face, picked up his toothbrush and the new one he'd left out for Lelouch and went out into the bedroom again, mopping his face on his sleeve. He dropped the toothbrushes into the rucksack as he passed it and brought the folded velvet Zero outfit to Nunnally. She took it and held it on her lap, idly watching Suzaku in silence as he went around the room picking up things he thought he might need – he emptied almost the entire contents of his First Aid kit into an inner compartment of the bag, sure he was going to go through quite a few more bandages before the wound in his shoulder healed enough for him to not need something to stem the bleeding with.

He rescued the crane from beneath the sheets and brought it over to Lelouch, who took it and fidgeted idly with it. Nunnally looked down at it.

"You made that for him?" she asked quietly.

Suzaku nodded.

"He practically demanded it," he replied absently, throwing some more clothes into his rucksack. "There was a pink one sitting on Lloyd's desk – it looked like the one I made him the night before…" He trailed off. "Well, that _last_ night."

"He brought it back with him?"

"That's what it looked like. We had to leave it behind, though."

Nunnally merely gave a silent nod, watching Suzaku pull his coat out of the back of the wardrobe.

"I've never seen that before," she said, nodding to it.

"I've had it for years," Suzaku replied, which was true – it had been in his possession since he was about fifteen, although it had always been rather big on him. It was very long, quite a dark shade of blue, with something of a cross on the back. He'd been wearing it the day he'd met Euphemia.

He noticed Lelouch looking at it, tilting his head as though he recognised it.

"I just haven't had a chance to wear it for ages," Suzaku went on, bringing the coat over to Lelouch and handing it to him. "Here, Lelouch – you wear this."

Lelouch very slowly got to his feet and started to obediently put the coat on as Suzaku went back to the wardrobe and pulled out a shorter black jacket for himself. Then he crouched, checked through the rucksack to see if he'd forgotten anything important, zipping it shut when he was satisfied and slinging it over his shoulder as he rose.

Lelouch was standing beside Nunnally's wheelchair, wearing the coat and still holding the crane; both siblings were looking right at him.

Suzaku held out his hand to Lelouch.

"Come on," he said. "Let's get out of here."

Lelouch gave a nod, reached down for Nunnally's hand and put the crane into it, closing her small fingers around it. Then he stepped past her, coming to Suzaku's side and letting the Japanese boy take him by the wrist. Suzaku began to lead him away, but as he passed the desk he paused, his gaze drawn to Zero's mask – his reflection pale and ghostlike in the brilliant black mirror of the visor.

He remembered Lelouch handing it to him in the darkened throne room the night he had explained his plan for the Zero Requiem – how it had been heavier than he had expected. He remembered putting it on that morning. He remembered Lelouch running his hand, stained with his own blood, down the left side of it, whispering that to wear the mask was Suzaku's punishment: He had to give up his identity in order to become a symbol. Humans needed individuality, the ability to be separate from one another so that they could lie and be lied to, hope and be hoped for, love and be loved. Suzaku knew that, and knew that that was the reason that he and C.C. had agreed with Lelouch's rejection of his parents' enforced instrumentality of human consciousness; and so forcing Suzaku to give up himself to assimilate into the symbolism – the legend – of Zero was perhaps worse than the kind of death Suzaku himself had wished for.

Suzaku had agreed to it not only because he had sworn himself to Lelouch and his cause as his knight, but also because he had believed that he deserved to be punished.

So as he looked at himself in Zero's mask now – the one he had dutifully worn every day of his life since the morning of the Zero Requiem, just as he had promised to – he felt that he shouldn't break his vow, even if it was to save the one he'd made that vow to.

On the other hand… he'd made that vow as both the Knight of Zero and the next-in-line Zero to the real, original Zero, and neither he nor Lelouch were any of those things now.

He turned towards Nunnally and handed her the mask, just as Lelouch had handed it to him.

"You're right, Nunnally," he said. "You'll have to find someone else to wear this mask. If I take back my identity as Lelouch's knight in order to save him, I can no longer be Zero."

Nunnally nodded, resting the mask on her lap, cushioned on the rest of the folded outfit; she wrapped her arms around it, still holding the crane.

"Be safe," she said quietly.

Suzaku nodded.

"The sword is in its scabbard on top of the wardrobe," he replied, which barely correlated to what she'd said – in fact, it was rather contrastive.

Nunnally watched them leave the room, her arms still tight around Zero's empty persona, feeling the crisp shape of the paper crane against her palm. She thought it was just as unfair that, even in a world her brother had fought so hard to make better, the dead still had to run.

* * *

_Milly Ashford was the only one in the Student Council Room that day. It wasn't that he'd been looking for her, exactly – but in a lot of ways, it was pretty perfect. She was really the only person he could talk to regarding Lelouch, and…_

_Well, she'd be leaving soon. She was finally graduating. Both Shirley and Lelouch had told him. Shirley had sounded rather forlorn but Lelouch had seemed kind of… relieved._

_Milly looked up from the pile of sheets she'd been poring over at the table._

"_Suzaku," she said, sounding surprised. "I didn't think you were in today."_

"_I just got here," Suzaku replied, shutting the door._

_Milly smiled sympathetically at him._

"_You've been missing more school than ever since you became the Knight of Seven," she said. "And after you missed a whole year, too… You're never going to graduate, you know." She grinned at him. "Well, at least I'll have a successor."_

"_Yes, I heard you were graduating. Congratulations."_

_She waved her hand dismissively._

"_You can save that for the day they actually escort me out of the gates," she laughed. "Until then, I'm still very much the life and soul of the Ashford Academy Student Body, clinging on as long as I can." She looked down at the papers spread out on the desk before her. "…I've been trying to make an easy job of it for Shirley, though. I'm checking the budget right now to make sure it's all in order before she takes over as President."_

"_Wouldn't… wouldn't Lelouch become President automatically?"_

_Milly shrugged._

"_Usually, but he already said he didn't want to be President. He told me that Shirley would do a better job and that he'd just stay as Vice-President to help her out." She noticed Suzaku frowning a little on hearing this and leaned across the table towards him, her chin resting on her palm. "Is that who you're looking for? Darling Lulu?"_

_He scowled at her, coming to the opposite side of the table and sinking heavily into one of the seats._

"_Hm?" Milly tilted her head. "What's wrong? Had a lover's spat?" She suddenly rubbed her hands together, a wicked smile spreading across her face. "You know, if he's upset you, I can arrange to have him publicly humiliated. It's my specialty, you know."_

"_Thanks anyway, Milly," Suzaku replied tersely. He heaved a sigh. "It's not… that we've had a fight or anything, it's just…"_

_Well, it wasn't like he could just come right out and say it – that he found it difficult to still love Lelouch when he hated him for being Zero and killing Euphemia and killing countless other people as well…_

_That wasn't the only thing he'd been thinking about, though. Some of it, he supposed, he __**could**__ say to Milly. The thing was, he'd rather been avoiding Lelouch, and he got the feeling that Lelouch was avoiding __**him**__. It wasn't that they had__ broken up, not by any means – but Suzaku felt that if he was wavering on matters so trivial, then maybe…_

_Maybe it was time it was put to rest._

"_I was thinking," he said finally, deciding to just throw all his cards on the table and see what Milly made of his hand, "that maybe it isn't right. I mean, Lelouch and I… we've had to hide it. It's not just because we're both boys, but because he's a Britannian, and a Britannian prince at that. No matter how many times I get promoted, by blood I'm still an Eleven. By social class, I'm still only an Honorary Britannian. He was born into the royal line and I'm only the son of the prime minister who couldn't even save Japan. I shouldn't be with him, and I think it was only my own selfishness that didn't allow me to see that before."_

_Milly merely arched an eyebrow at him._

"_Do __**you**__ really believe that you shouldn't be allowed to love Lelouch because of your blood and your birth," she asked, "or is that simply what you __**think**__ you should believe?" _

_Suzaku looked down at the table._

"_Because if you want to know what __**I**__ think," Milly went on, not really waiting for an answer, "you might consider me to be a bit of a romantic, but I believe that the way people love each other doesn't have rules like that. Do you love Lelouch __**because**__ he's a Britannian? Do you love him even __**though**__ he's a Britannian?"_

_Suzaku looked up again._

"_Neither," he replied._

_Milly smiled and nodded._

"_That's the right answer. People do not love for blood or birth. You consider that social class makes you a bad match for him, but what does that matter? I mean, look at me." She shrugged. "I'm engaged to Lloyd because my parents consider him to be a perfect match socially for me."_

"…_But you don't love him?"_

"_Not even a little bit." Milly gave a sad little smile. "Sure, I __**like**__ him, I guess. But I don't love him, and I certainly don't want to marry him. …To be honest, I think I might break off our engagement. I don't think he really wants to marry me, either. I mean, when you marry someone, think of the vows you take – in sickness and in health, for richer and for poorer, to have and to hold until death do you part, or whatever it is… Don't you think you should __**love**__ someone if you take vows like that with them, no matter how well you do or don't fit with them in social terms?"_

_Suzaku privately couldn't imagine Milly ever saying anything as serious as wedding vows, but he nodded, because he had to admit that she had a point. As an Earl, Lloyd was the perfect suitor for a member of the prestigious Ashford family, but that didn't change the fact that he'd make a terrible husband…_

"_That's not all, though," Suzaku went on, leaning back in his chair a bit, looking up at the Council Room ceiling. "Maybe it wouldn't be so bad if one of us was a girl… I mean, is it okay for a boy to love another boy?"_

"_Suzaku, you've been banging him for __**how**__ long?" Milly asked, actually sounding a little incredulous. "And only __**now**__ you're wondering about which way you swing?"_

"_That's not what I said," Suzaku replied sharply, looking back at her. "I mean… well, it's unnatural, isn't it? Humans are meant to be attracted to the opposite sex so that we reproduce and don't die out."_

"_What are you implying – that you and Lelouch __**invented**__ homosexuality or something?"_

_He simply scowled at her on that._

"_Honestly, it sounds like you're making excuses now," Milly went on, toying with a strand of her gold hair. "If you're worried about ruining his reputation, don't be – half the girls here already know he's gay and the other half will still chase him even after they find out, hoping they might change his mind. As for me, I had a feeling he was gay the first time I ever saw him. He was twelve, by the way. If you're worried about your __**own**__ reputation being ruined, Shirley and I will help you get him into a skirt and you can pass him off as a girl. Good heavens," she sighed suddenly, but she was grinning again, "he's prettier than __**me**__." _

"_I'll assume that you still haven't managed to get him into a skirt, then, Ms President."_

"_Someday," Milly muttered, banging her fist on the table. "You know, if you held him still, we might get somewhere." _

"_Nice try, Milly."_

"_I think this is more a case of "Nice try, Suzaku", if you must know," Milly replied. "If you have any more silly reasons why you shouldn't be with Lelouch, please throw them my way and I'll be glad to shoot them down. …Of course, if you __**really**__ don't want him, I'll have him."_

_Suzaku snorted and got up._

"_You'd rent him out by the hour, I expect," he replied curtly._

_Milly winked at him._

"_Of course. Still, if I've managed to convince you to keep your lucky little mitts on him, all the better. __After all, you __**do**__ look sickeningly good together." She rested her chin on her interlinked hands, smiling at Suzaku again. "Don't worry__ about him being a Britannian, or a prince, or a boy, or whatever else – and don't love him for any of those things, either. Love him because he's Lelouch."_

"_I—" Suzaku began; but he stopped abruptly as the door opened._

_Lelouch himself walked in – he was looking down at the sheet of paper clutched in his hand, apparently not even noticing Suzaku as he approached Milly._

"_I did the maths for you, Ms President," he said flatly, handing her the sheet. "You should be able to match up the budget easily now."_

"_Thankyou, Mr Vice-President." Milly grinned guiltily at Suzaku, having been quite thoroughly busted._

_Lelouch followed her gaze; blinking in surprise to see Suzaku._

"_I didn't think you were in today," he said._

"_I just got here," Suzaku replied again expressionlessly._

"_Well, now that you're both here, you can do something for me," Milly said brightly. "There's a box of new rota-sheet pads down in the basement. Shirley might need them when she takes over. You two can go and get them."_

"_How about we wait until Shirley perhaps __**does**__ need them and __**then**__ we'll go and get them?" Lelouch spat in reply._

"_I swear there's a new pad in the cupboard," Suzaku muttered._

"_Oh, humour me," Milly pouted. "Soon I'll be out of your hair forever. Indulge me now. Come on, Lelouch…"_

_Milly leapt up, giving the impression of making a grab for Lelouch's cheek so that she could pinch it – he fled from her reach at an impressive speed._

"_Alright, alright, we'll get the stupid pads," he grumbled, going to the door. "Come on, Suzaku."_

"_I, uh… okay…" Suzaku followed him, looking back at Milly in bewilderment._

_She blew him a kiss._

_(It was actually a very small box and certainly didn't need two people to carry it – not that either of them paid any attention to it, or even bothered looking for it. Suzaku shoved Lelouch against a stack of crates and kissed him hard, Lelouch hardly an unwilling party, winding his thin arms around Suzaku's chest and pulling him close._

_Whatever he thought, whatever reasons he gave, the spark of attraction still blazed. Maybe he hated both Lelouch and himself for it, but he couldn't help it. He'd made Lelouch the king of his desire._

_Of course, it wasn't looks alone that he loved – but at present, all he cared about was the physicality. Milly was right, but the thing was that it was difficult these days to love Lelouch because he was Lelouch. _

_Because he wasn't just Lelouch – he was Zero too._

_Even if he didn't remember—_

_Or even if he did.)_

* * *

They'd dug up his grave.

It was empty, of course – the only thing in that coffin was his carefully-folded Knight of Zero uniform. Lelouch had held a big public funeral procession for his knight that had been "killed in action", and Suzaku had watched it on TV from their room – it was then that he'd truly appreciated how scarily good an actor Lelouch was. The coffin had then been buried in the grounds of the Kururugi Shrine to lie undisturbed. The shrine had been closed after the Britannian occupation and never opened again.

Which made it the perfect hiding place. Suzaku had known it wouldn't be in great shape after having been abandoned for ten years, but he'd also considered it to be the safest place for he and Lelouch to go. It was far enough away from the mansion he'd grown up in, which had been given to the government after Genbu Kururugi's death, to ensure that no-one would stumble across them.

The shrine itself was still untouched, ravaged only by Nature's unkindness, but on stepping outside, he found that couldn't say the same for the burial grounds. All the old graves lay at peace, but the newest – his own – was open, unearthed ground strewn all around it. The lid had been put back on the coffin, but was clear that it had been opened, the lid covered with scratches from the shovels which had dragged it from the earth.

It looked recent. It had taken he and Lelouch a while to get here – it was quite a walk, and Suzaku had made sure to stagger the journey, making it longer and more complicated still, in case they were being followed – so it was possible that Cornelia had sent people to unearth the coffin to check if it was empty or not whilst she went to get the Zero Immunity Act repealed. If that was the case, the coffin could have been dug up, opened and declared empty, with the "excavation team" having gone on their way, before Suzaku and Lelouch had even gotten anywhere _near_ the Kururugi Shrine.

It made Suzaku feel sick to look at it – not because he was now in even greater danger of being discovered as alive, but because of the mess they'd made. Empty or not, a grave was a grave. They hadn't even bothered to properly rebury the coffin. He wondered if they were off to dig up Lelouch's as well…

He looked at the plaque imbedded flat into the ground in place of a headstone. It was very like all of the other plaques in the burial ground but for the fact that the text on it was in English instead of Japanese. He kicked away some of the soil so that he could read it.

KNIGHT OF ZERO

SUZAKU KURURUGI

2000-2018

Here lies a consummate and valuable Knight

to His Highness Lelouch Vi Britannia,

99th Emperor of the Holy Britannia Empire

Lelouch had been very precise about it. Suzaku hadn't much cared if there was a plaque or not, but Lelouch had insisted that if he was willing to give up Suzaku Kururugi, then Suzaku Kururugi needed to be properly put to rest and remembered for all that he had done. Suzaku had shrugged and said that he expected someone to come and spray 'TRAITOR' across it within a week, anyway.

But the plaque was untouched, even three years later. Not that it mattered. He thought that he'd _rather_ someone had defaced it with hateful words than for it to have been dug up.

_This_ meant that Suzaku Kururugi no longer had a place to rest.

—

Lelouch was rapidly going into withdrawals again.

Suzaku had sensed it kicking in for a while now, noting his pallor grow whiter, his behaviour become twitchy and irritable and his appetite decline. Suzaku had bought some things that would last for quite a while from a store on the outskirts of the city on their way over here – perhaps a cup of instant noodles was hardly comparable to a fresh peach, but the way Lelouch picked disinterestedly at his food was less of a snub and more a sign that his body was too preoccupied with demanding drugs to bother about being hungry.

Now he was lying face-down on top of the bedding roll and blankets Suzaku had lain out on the floor for them to sleep on, almost completely still. Suzaku sat a little way away from him, watching him. He hadn't brought the Refrain with him. Not that he _wanted_ to give Lelouch any more, not after this morning – but he couldn't, regardless. Lelouch was going to have to come down off it the hard way.

Suzaku noticed that Lelouch's hand was pressed to his forearm again. He understood that it must be agonisingly difficult for him. As Lelouch himself had said, he obviously didn't want to be poisoned with Refrain – he didn't want any more of it put into his body to just make his addiction worse. But, on the other hand, his addiction to the drug enslaved him, made his body shake with need for it, until the overwhelming pain of withdrawals made him fold to his dependence and send the whole thing spinning full circle once more. Of course, Lloyd had been no help, undoubtedly causing the addiction in the first place and probably pumping Lelouch's system with Refrain at least twice a day, if not more; but Suzaku knew that he probably hadn't assisted matters himself by giving in to Lelouch's comedown-fuelled tantrums.

He also knew that Lelouch didn't even _want_ the drug, not really. He just wanted the pain to stop.

Suzaku lay back himself, sprawling widthways across the bottom of the bedding roll and looking up at the ceiling of the shrine's main room. There were several dark, spreading stains on it from where leaks in the roof had allowed rainwater to seep through, and patchy colonies of moss had gathered in the corners. There was a single thin but determined vein of ivy weaving its way like a river on the flat expanse of a map across the ceiling too, tapering to a stop at around the halfway mark. The ivy was denser at the walls, infiltrating the shrine's interior through the tiniest of cracks and gaps, even laying claim to the faded scrolls of kanji-rendered prayers and proverbs and winding like chains around the peeling statues.

Somehow, though, despite the fact that it had fallen into such disrepair, the peace of its purpose as a shrine still remained. Even having been forced into hiding by a woman so obsessed with her sister's murder that she wouldn't allow the dead to rest, even with Lelouch crying for Refrain not three feet from him, even with his grave desecrated and open, when he lay here and looked up at the ceiling, none of it seemed to matter as much.

It apparently wasn't having the same effect on Lelouch, however – the immortal boy was curled up as tight as he could possibly fold himself, cradling his head in his hands. Suzaku turned his head to look at him, watching him hopelessly. There really _was_ nothing he could do for him.

He rolled over, pushed himself up and crawled over to Lelouch, kneeling next to him. Lelouch unfurled himself a little on feeling Suzaku sink next to him, looking up at him. His violet eyes were glittery and feverish and his whole body was shaking quite violently; he didn't resist at all to Suzaku lifting him upright, slumping bonelessly against him and burying his face in the Japanese boy's wounded shoulder. Suzaku tried his best to ignore the pain, holding Lelouch around his back, rocking him back and forwards a little as though trying to lull a small child to sleep.

It seemed to work for a little while, Lelouch completely still in his arms, even closing his eyes; Suzaku was beginning to feel a little drowsy himself, sedated by the feeling of Lelouch's heartbeat against his own ribcage from where their chests were flush, and couldn't be sure exactly how long they'd been kneeling there when Lelouch started struggling again. He wasn't strong enough to get out of Suzaku's grasp, but the way he wriggled and twisted like a dying fish made it difficult to hold on to him properly. Suzaku grasped him by the elbows as he strained to get away from him, shaking him.

"Lelouch, _stop_ it," he hissed.

Lelouch did pause, looking at Suzaku unfocusedly, his breathing quick and short. Suzaku leaned down towards him, thinking that perhaps _distracting_ him was a better option – he took hold of his chin to keep his head still and kissed him. Lelouch wasn't remotely interested, trying to pull away, though his struggles ceased when he realised that he couldn't get away and he merely went limp in Suzaku's grasp, admitting defeat but not responding otherwise. Suzaku kept their mouths locked together regardless, moving his hands to close around Lelouch's shoulders, determined to get some kind of real reaction out of him.

The truth was, Suzaku was rapidly getting very tired of memoryless-Lelouch. He was sick of him being silent. He was sick of him looking at people like Nunnally and Suzaku himself like he didn't know them. He was sick of treating him like a child. He wanted the real Lelouch back – and he knew that the real Lelouch _was_ in here somewhere. Suzaku wasn't willing to indulge his game of Hide-and-Seek anymore.

So he began thinking in strategic terms – like a soldier or a pilot or a knight. If he was going to get at the real Lelouch and drag him out of his hiding place, there were several barriers he had to get through. He had to break through both the effects of the withdrawal symptoms and the block Lelouch had placed on his own memory, and then he might have to contend with Lelouch's Code as well. He was perfectly aware that Lelouch might resist him through his Code, possibly even attack him, using the still-existing Geass command infused into Suzaku's system as a weapon against him, but Suzaku knew all about risks. He wasn't afraid of them, and he wasn't afraid of fighting.

Connection was the tricky part. The other two times he'd managed to make contact with Lelouch's Code hadn't been _his_ doing – the first time he had touched the Geass symbol on Lelouch's forehead, not thinking it would affect him, and the second time he had been hacked by the imprint of Lelouch's Code that had been accidentally downloaded into the Jupiter System Prototype, though he suspected that the Jupiter's actual system had also been interfacing with Lelouch himself, who had powered the otherwise-dead machine with his mere contact.

If he was going to get anywhere near Lelouch of his own volition, he needed something to both overwhelm the effects of comedown wracking Lelouch and synchronise both of their bodies so as to allow Lelouch's Code to interface with the Geass still on Suzaku even all these years later.

Of course, he could think of only one thing that could do both at once. If he utilized both the physical and mental aspects of sexual intercourse at once, he could completely crush Lelouch beneath his "counterattack" and get at him before the real Lelouch – buried beneath the physical, memoryless shell – had even realised it. Basically it was a form of hacking, breaking through the chaotic but clever formation of Lelouch's defence – if Suzaku wanted to get at the ghost, he had to shatter the machine so that it couldn't fight back.

Thinking of it in that sense made it a lot easier for him – a plan of attack was a plan of attack, after all, which was something that brought comfort to someone like him, who'd so long been a soldier first and foremost. No matter how much he enjoyed or didn't enjoy sex, he'd always thought of it as a mechanism, another aspect of human machinery, and machines were easily manipulated.

Lelouch had stopped resisting him entirely. Suzaku tried not to be too rough or aggressive about it, not wanting to spook Lelouch into struggling again, but he was firm in pushing the immortal boy to his elbows and knees. He held him down with one hand as he went to his fly with the other, unbuttoning and unzipping himself with fingers that were becoming a little slippery with sweat – he didn't know if it was anticipation or nervousness or maybe even fear. He didn't like Geass and he didn't like Codes: C.C.'s had terrified him and Lelouch's had hurt him. He had no idea how Lelouch was going to handle an intrusion so far past even physical boundaries, had no idea how he'd retaliate, and perhaps _that_ was why his heart-rate picked up as he unbuttoned his shorts as well.

Lelouch still didn't struggle, not seeming to care about being pinned in such an obvious and undignified position. He was still shaking, every now and then giving the odd little groan or gasp of discomfort from the harrowing tantrum for Refrain his body was throwing. He was certainly far more preoccupied with his suffering than he was with Suzaku, for he barely reacted when Suzaku reached underneath him and began to undo the borrowed jeans he was wearing. He didn't move at all when both the jeans and his underwear were pushed down to his knees. He didn't make a sound of protest when Suzaku positioned his hips a little better, forcing him to arch his back more.

They were all things the real Lelouch would have mouthed off about, without a doubt.

He _did_ give a little cry when Suzaku entered him, buckling forwards beneath the Japanese boy's weight, but it was probably just the shock; Suzaku hadn't prepared him and had only spat into his hand to help make it easier on him. Honestly, Suzaku wasn't usually this unkind, but he didn't have time for niceties right now. This wasn't for pleasure. This was a battle strategy. This was a machine designed to dig Lelouch out of whatever little hidey-hole he'd made for himself within his own consciousness and force him to inhabit his body again.

Suzaku pushed forwards with a grimace. It wasn't a pleasant sensation – Lelouch wasn't resisting but he wasn't going with it, either, and the lack of proper preparation made it uncomfortable. Suzaku looked down at him, watching him bury his face in the pillows and clutch at the blankets with fists that had gone almost as white as the shirt Suzaku had lent him. He felt sorry for him – he knew he must be hurting him, but he was determined not to pull back now. This was the only way he could both try to distract Lelouch from the comedown _and_ try to get the real Lelouch back all in one go.

He put one hand on Lelouch's hip and slipped the other underneath him, holding his stomach to give him some support, as he began to build a rhythm. The friction didn't really lessen but the thrusts got easier; Suzaku closed his eyes to concentrate better, trying to feel Lelouch in more than just a physical sense. Being inside his body was only the first step – he needed to get closer, to get inside his Code, to _connect_.

_Where are you, Lelouch? Why are you hiding?_

But there was nothing there. He felt nothing other _than_ the physical aspect of it. He could feel the tightness winding itself up in him, feel the heat beginning to simmer low in his belly, feel Lelouch's body both around and beneath him, hot against his hands, but he could feel nothing else. Perhaps… perhaps Lelouch had figured out what he was trying to do and had retreated even further inside his Code? Perhaps if he'd been kinder about it, Lelouch might have been more willing to show himself? Or maybe they simply weren't synchronising? Lelouch was more complex than the Lancelot, Suzaku had always been aware of that. Sometimes he'd wished, and still wished, that Lelouch _was_ as easy to control as that machine…

_Why are you hiding from me…?_

Orgasm hit him broadside. He hadn't been expecting it – he'd let his mind wander too far to be able to catch up with his body. He only hissed, rocking with the sensation of it. He couldn't really feel Lelouch anymore; in fact, he couldn't really feel anything but the shuddering, ebbing pleasure of his dying orgasm.

He opened his eyes slowly. Lelouch wasn't beneath him. His surroundings had completely changed; he glanced around, still breathing heavily, exhausted. He was sitting in the cockpit of the Lancelot. His hands were wrapped tightly around the controls and he was dressed in his pilot outfit.

None of it was right, though. Although he didn't panic, dimly accepting this sudden strange turn of events, he knew that this couldn't be right. Both the Lancelot and the Lancelot Albion had been destroyed. He hadn't worn this outfit for years.

He raised his gaze – half-lidded – towards the screen directly in front of him. It was filled with line after line of garbled nonsense, ampersands and currency signs and asterisks and the like. He squinted at it despite knowing that he wouldn't be able to make any sense of it.

The screen suddenly flickered and Lelouch appeared on it instead. Suzaku couldn't see very much of him, since he was only on the screen from the shoulders up, but there was something wrong with _him_, too.

His eyes were green.

"Far be it from me to call you unfaithful," he said with a smile; but although his mouth moved, the words did not come from the screen, rather from somewhere behind Suzaku.

Suzaku blinked at him, not understanding what he meant; he froze on feeling hands slide over his shoulders and down onto his chest. He turned as much as he could in the pilot seat, looking upwards too, finding Lelouch draping himself over him from behind.

His eyes were still green – and not even the natural jade that Suzaku's own were. They were a garish, glowing, almost… _electronic_ green.

Suddenly afraid of him, Suzaku wrenched himself out of his grip, scrambling out of the pilot seat and whirling to face him. As soon as he rose, the entire cockpit faded from existence, leaving Suzaku alone with this weird version of Lelouch in the middle of a vast expanse of white space.

The place he found himself in wasn't the only white thing, however. Lelouch was dressed in his Ashford Academy school uniform, but the main body of material was pure white in place of the usual black. With the gold embellishing and those awful green eyes, he actually… looked quite a bit like…

"H-how… how am I unfaithful, Lelouch?" Suzaku asked softly.

The other boy tilted his head, smiling.

"I'm not Lelouch," he said with Lelouch's voice. "I'm Lancelot – and you _aren't_ unfaithful, Suzaku Kururugi. Three years later and you still pledge half of your heart to me."

"Why… why do you look like Lelouch?" Suzaku went on, feeling rather sick looking at him.

"Because the boy who owns this form is whom the other half of your heart belongs to," Lancelot sighed. "But please don't confuse us. I'm the least dangerous out of us both."

"No… _no!_" Suzaku backed away from him. "E-even if this… even if you were… you're gone! Both of the Lancelots Lloyd created for me have been destroyed!"

"That's why I said you weren't unfaithful. I've been gone three years and yet you still love me. That's commitment. Still…" Lancelot suddenly smiled Lelouch's sour smile. "You _do_ seem to have a very strange habit of destroying the people you love."

"You're not a person!" Suzaku snapped.

"Then why do you love me?"

"I… I don't… I just…"

"Ignore him, Suzaku."

Lelouch's voice again – but Lancelot had not spoken. Once more, the voice addressing him had come from behind. Eying Lancelot warily, Suzaku dared to turn a little to look for the second source of Lelouch's voice, finding that, several metres away, there was another version of the Britannian boy – or Britannian _Emperor_, to be completely accurate, given that this new Lelouch was dressed in his ornate robes. He wasn't looking at Suzaku, rather more interested in the chessboard on the small table he was sitting at; he had one leg crossed over the other and his cheek resting on his knuckles as he picked up the black king and swung it back and forth between his slender fingers like a pendulum, considering where to put it.

Suzaku blinked at him but didn't venture anywhere near him. The fact that _this_ Lelouch was wearing white and gold as well didn't help, but… He looked back at Lancelot, who suddenly stretched out his hand towards him.

"I don't understand," Lancelot said when Suzaku stepped back from him even further, repelled by his invitation. "As a machine – a terrible monster of a machine – you love me, but personified like this and you're suddenly afraid. Shouldn't it be the other way around?" He tilted his head. "Or don't you like this form? Do you want me to change?"

He _did_ change without even waiting for Suzaku's answer; the edges of the body he'd borrowed from Lelouch blurred and then standing before Suzaku instead was Euphemia.

Euphemia in a dress that was white and gold instead of white and pink. Euphemia with gaudy green eyes instead of lilac like Nunnally's.

She picked up her dress and started towards Suzaku with a smile and he fled.

Lelouch looked up as Suzaku neared him; when Suzaku came within a foot or two of the table, the white oblivion they'd all been floating in vanished, replaced by the Ashford Academy Student Council Room. He and Lelouch were alone in it, Lelouch still in his emperor robes and Suzaku still in his pilot outfit. Suzaku looked wildly around for Lelouch-Euphemia-Lancelot, but he/she/it was nowhere in the vicinity.

"Lancelot's gone," Lelouch said flatly, making Suzaku look sharply at him.

His eyes were violet.

"You… you're the real thing… aren't you?" Suzaku breathed desperately. "You're the real Lelouch?"

"Of course I am," Lelouch replied dismissively, uncrossing his legs and rising – and as the table no longer blocked him, Suzaku saw – to his horror – that there was a wet red stain at Lelouch's abdomen, in exactly the place where…

"Don't ask questions if you don't want to know the answer," Lelouch snapped, following his gaze; he rubbed absently at the stain on himself, removing his fingers and looking at them critically. "The white makes it look worse, you know."

"I…" Suzaku looked down at the floor for a long moment, clenching his fists. "Lelouch, I came to get you," he said determinedly, looking up again.

Lelouch, who was no longer in his robes but instead in his Ashford uniform (black), shot him an interested little smile and leaned gracefully against the edge of the table. A quick glance downwards at himself made Suzaku aware that he too was in his old school uniform.

"That's very kind of you, Suzaku," Lelouch said loftily. "Still the perfect knight, I see."

"It's… it's not that." Suzaku folded his arms and turned away from him irritably. "I'm just tired of looking after you. You're like a little kid without any memories."

"A little kid?"

Suzaku whipped around – Lelouch's voice had just sounded distinctively higher-pitched. Sure enough, he saw the ten-year-old he'd first made friends with all those years ago looking up at him, smiling very sweetly.

"So you've found something you don't like and decided that using excessive force to change it was the best way forward," the child went on. He sighed and shook his head. "You haven't changed at all, Suzaku."

It was exactly the kind of thing Lelouch would say now, but somehow it seemed snottier coming from his ten-year-old self. Suzaku glared down at him, actually feeling rather like smacking him one.

"That's hypocritical," he said tersely. "Isn't that exactly what you did as Zero?"

"Hm?" Lelouch blinked. "Oh, Zero. Right." He scampered behind Suzaku and emerged on the other side as a teenager again, dressed as Zero. "But I'm not Zero anymore, remember?"

He materialised the mask from beneath his cloak and, despite its weight, tossed it lightly to Suzaku; who caught it with both hands and realised then that he too was now _also_ dressed as Zero. He put the mask down on the table in the middle of the Student Council Room and went around the head of the table, moving to the other side of it and putting it between himself and Lelouch.

"I seem to remember you making me a promise," Lelouch went on regardless, planting his hands on the table's surface and leaning across it as far as he could, grinning at Suzaku. "You promised that you would become Zero – _you_ would become that legend. That was the point of the Zero Requiem. Do you see, Suzaku? The Zero Requiem was the machine, orchestrated to save the world not from me, but from itself. But there is nothing mechanical about Zero. A symbol can be neither man nor machine. Still…" Lelouch gave a sudden sigh, looking down at the table's surface. "…Perhaps I wasn't playing fair. _My_ side of the bargain was that I was to die, and I didn't."

"I didn't come here to discuss this with you," Suzaku said sharply. "I came here to get you. There's no need for you hide like this."

"Now _you're_ the one who's not playing fair," Lelouch muttered, leaning back completely. "When the grave that you aren't even in is disturbed, you consider it a violation, yet you commit the same sin against me."

"And are you _happy_ here?" Suzaku snapped. "Is hiding in your Code fun, Lelouch?"

"…Suzaku, you surely don't think we're in my Code right now?" Lelouch asked. He slipped off his cloak, revealing what was presumably his final costume change – his black prisoner's outfit. Between the silky strands of his fringe, his Geass symbol was at last visible, too. "Honestly, whose head do you think we're in? Hasn't it occurred to you that everything you've seen or anything I've said has been rather more particular to _you_ than to me? The Lancelot, Euphemia… I mean, how would I even have known that you felt that Cornelia ordering your grave to be dug up was disgusting? You never mentioned it."

Suzaku stared at him; then wildly gestured around.

"But this… all this… this can't just be… I mean, _you_…"

"Oh, your effort to contact me wasn't wasted." Lelouch smiled. "I'm actually very impressed. However, I know that you were trying to get into my Code – that isn't what has happened. Quite the opposite, in fact. We're in _your_ mind, Suzaku – not mine."

"Then what are you doing here?" Suzaku asked faintly.

Lelouch beamed.

"You invited me," he said.

"…But why did you come?"

Lelouch blinked at him.

"That's what you wanted, wasn't it? That's what… all _this_ was about, am I correct?"

Suzaku didn't answer immediately, looking away.

"W-well," he said at length, "you can stop hiding now, can't you?" He looked up at Lelouch again, his eyes pleading. "Please come back to your body. I can't stand looking at you and knowing you're not really there."

"If only it was that easy," Lelouch sighed.

Suzaku blinked.

"Wh… why can't you? I mean, why isn't it…?"

"I doubt you've really allowed yourself time to think about it," Lelouch said levelly, "but you're angry. You're angry with me. Don't think I can't feel it."

"Why would I be angry with you?" Suzaku asked incredulously.

"I don't blame you," Lelouch said calmly. "It's perfectly understandable. Three years – you've spent three years thinking I was dead, that you were responsible for my death, and then I suddenly turn up again out of nowhere, very much alive? Of course you'd be angry with me."

"And _that's_ why you're hiding?!" Suzaku burst out. "Lelouch, what do you think I'm going to _do_ to you?!"

"I don't know. How _would_ you manifest three years of suffering into an action against the one who made you suffer, Suzaku?"

"I'm not _angry_ at you!"

"Suzaku, please don't forget whose mind we're in. If you think I'm being unkind, then let's not forget that the unkindest person to Suzaku Kururugi _is_ Suzaku Kururugi. Even all these years later, it still seems to me that you think that you don't deserve to be happy – that you don't deserve to be loved."

"But _I_ love _you_!" Suzaku slammed his hands down on the table as he watched Lelouch turn away from him and start to drift towards the door of the Student Council Room. "Lelouch! Where are you going?" He found that he didn't even have the strength to go after him, instead simply watching him desperately as he reached the door. "_Lelouch_!" he called again. "Come back! Please come back! Don't leave me again…!"

Lelouch opened the door and looked back at the Japanese boy.

"Come on, Suzaku," he said; and he left the room.

Suzaku didn't follow him, though. He felt his knees give out on him and sank to them, burying his face in his arms on the tabletop and closing his eyes.

It was a long time before he opened them again; but when he did, he was no longer in the Student Council Room or anywhere else that was manifested either by Lelouch's Code or his own memories or both. He was lying on top of Lelouch on the bedding roll in the middle of the Kururugi Shrine. He was no longer inside Lelouch, and the violet-eyed boy wasn't on his knees anymore, either – he was lying on his back instead, staring sightlessly up at the stained ceiling. Suzaku had no idea how he'd managed to move, but he obviously had. The Geass symbol on his forehead was glowing, but that was not what captured Suzaku's attention as he raised his weight off Lelouch and looked down at him.

He was crying. Not sobbing or wailing or even sniffling – he was completely still and silent, with just a steady stream of tears sliding down his face as he looked up past Suzaku. He didn't look as though he was even properly conscious, and Suzaku didn't know why he was crying, but something stopped the Japanese boy from touching him to wipe away the tears.

Instead Suzaku got off him, kneeling up to make himself decent. He glanced down at Lelouch as he buttoned his combat trousers, not wanting to leave him in a state of partial undress, but found that Lelouch had apparently taken care of it himself, for the black jeans that Suzaku had lent him were zipped and buttoned again.

Suzaku felt awful looking at him, sorry that he'd forced himself on him for a reason so selfish. It wasn't Lelouch's fault that Suzaku had no patience with him. Perhaps he'd have known what to do if Lelouch cowered from him in fear, or if he got angry, or if he even looked up at him and asked "Why?", but the way he was just lying there, completely motionless…

Suzaku couldn't even say he was sorry.

Getting to his feet, Suzaku debated putting one of the blankets over Lelouch, decided not to touch him and left the shrine building.

He had no idea what time it was, but it was dark outside – he stumbled a few times on memorial plaques and slabs that were poking haphazardly out of the uneven ground as he made for his own open grave. He could barely read it, but the mess made it unmistakeable. He sat down on the plaque bearing his own lie of a legend and curled up, hugging his knees to his chest.

If he'd ever felt this disgusted with himself, he couldn't remember when. In less than twenty-four hours, he had managed to screw up so impressively that he deserved some kind of award for it. He was supposed to protect Nunnally and instead had involved her in the fact that he'd stolen something that someone like Cornelia Li Britannia didn't want people to know about. He'd given up being Zero in order to be Lelouch's knight again and keep him safe from those that would recapture him and instead had essentially raped him when he'd gotten sick of looking after him. The whole reason they were on the run and hiding in a shrine that had been abandoned for a decade in the first place was because he had murdered Lloyd.

He curled up tighter, pressing his forehead to his knees. He didn't blame Lelouch for hiding. Maybe that had been part of Lelouch's plan all those years ago – erasing his own existence to save the world from Lelouch Vi Britannia, and erasing Suzaku's for much the same reason. Because Suzaku knew he was capable of doing very wicked things; twisted, cruel, vicious things. Lelouch knew that, too – he'd been the recipient of a few of them. And, in knowing that, perhaps he'd reasoned that if he forced Suzaku to be Zero – the symbol of justice – then Suzaku could not stray and be anything else (like a traitor or a rapist or a murderer).

It was true – he had promised Lelouch that he would take up Zero's mantle. He had promised Lelouch to allow Suzaku Kururugi to be buried and forgotten about. But still, as he'd noticed before…

His grave was torn open, and it was clear for all to see that Suzaku Kururugi wasn't in it.

He sharply raised his head as he heard soft footsteps approach him. Lelouch was standing at the other end of the grave, a coffin's length away from him. He was dressed in his black prisoner's outfit, looking so much like the version of himself who had wandered into Suzaku's head that—

"I'm real," Lelouch said, seeming to interpret his thoughts. "And I'm sorry, Suzaku."

"Y-_you're_ sorry?" Suzaku stammered; he unfurled himself, rising very slowly, standing on top of his own memorial plaque. "I'm the one who—"

"Don't worry about that. The truth is…" Lelouch looked away briefly, as though too ashamed to hold Suzaku's gaze. "I've been very cruel to you."

"By sealing your memories away?" Suzaku held his breath as he asked it – was it too much to hope that Lelouch had listened to his plea and come out of his Code to re-inhabit his body again…?

"Not even that." Lelouch finally looked back at him. "To be honest… all this time I've been with you, I've actually had my memories. I was just pretending that I was amnesiac."

Suzaku stared at him.

"…_Why_?" he asked finally.

"Because I had to know it was safe," Lelouch replied. "Three years is a long time, Suzaku. I had to know I could still trust you."

"Then was it all an act? What about when you were with Lloyd?" Suzaku shook his head. "When I went into your Code the first time, I asked you if you had sealed your memories and you said yes. Why did you lie?"

"I didn't. When I was caught and handed over to Lloyd Asplund, I _did_ seal them off. The question you asked was in past tense – you never asked if my memories were _still_ sealed away."

"So when did they come back?" Suzaku asked in a low voice.

"When you touched my forehead in the cell."

Suzaku blinked at him.

"_That's_ what that was?" he murmured, remembering that sensation, the impression that he was suddenly seeing into Lelouch's mind on a very intimate level… "But… but why me? Why did they come back when _I_ touched you? Surely Lloyd was pawing all over you – if it was just contact you needed—"

"Why do you think I sealed them away in the first place?" Lelouch interrupted. "I knew Lloyd would try experimenting on my Code – I didn't know how far into it he'd be able to get, but I couldn't risk him seeing my memories of the Zero Requiem, however scant." He stepped around the edge of the grave and moved up the length of it towards Suzaku very slowly. "It was to protect you, idiot. That's why, when _you_ touched me, they came back."

He stopped a foot or so from the plaque Suzaku was standing on, looking up at him.

"You have every right to be angry with me," he said quietly.

"_You_ have every right to be angry with _me_," Suzaku replied, looking away.

"I said it was okay."

"You're very forgiving."

"No, I'm not."

Suzaku looked at him again on that. Lelouch had put out his hand towards him, as though offering to shake with him. His smile was cryptic but genuine. It really _was_ him. Suzaku actually felt like kind of an idiot for falling for his memoryless act – but he _had_ fallen for it, and so the relief that washed over him now was as real as the sudden smile on Lelouch's face.

Suzaku reached out and slipped his hand into Lelouch's, their fingers locking into a strange, firm handshake that didn't move. After a long moment of standing there like that, Suzaku gave a sudden tug, pulling Lelouch up onto the plaque with him. He wrapped his arms around his small frame – feeling now, in such a less-intimate action, more connected to him than he had even when he'd been inside him.

Lelouch's thin arms snaked around his back, completing the embrace.

"Welcome back, Lelouch," Suzaku murmured, saying it into the immortal boy's shoulder.

Lelouch was silent for a long while, as though grimly observant of where they were standing – at the head of his knight's open, absent grave. When he finally replied, he clutched at the Japanese boy even tighter.

"Welcome back, Suzaku," he said.

* * *

Aha! So the plot thickens! :)

First of all, apologies to any readers of _Poison Apple_ – you may have noticed distinct similarities between this chapter and the chapter of _PA_ called _Hair Black As Ebony_, what with the whole running-off-and-hiding-in-long-abandoned-blast-from-the-past-location…

Oh well, at least I was only ripping off myself and not _Neon Genesis Evangelion_. ;)

Secondly, Suzaku's grave. Well, the engraving on it, to be specific. If it makes you laugh that it says "consummate" on it, then I must have you know that it is in fact completely accurate. You see Suzaku's "grave" in Episode 25 of _Code Geass R2 _and the text on it is in English, so it was easy for me to just pause the scene and jot it down.

Now, whatever is actually _meant_ by consummate (and I will assume that it was meant in the 'skilled/talented' sense), I am afraid the first thing I think of is 'consummating a marriage'. Additionally, if you look it up in a proper dictionary, the meaning of the word in the sexual way is the first meaning described.

So, yeah. They were totally gay, and there's the evidence. Lelouch even had it written on Suzaku's flipping _grave_.

This chapter also witnessed the return of another of Suzaku's "possessions": His coat. I love Suzaku's coat. You know, the blue one that completely _screams_ CLAMP? It has that completely-impractical strap thing going around it which looks like it would be a total nuisance if that coat was real and you were trying to wear it, but from the back, as I said in the narrative, it looks like a cross and I love it. :)

(Although if he suddenly whipped out a wooden stake, I admit that I'd be worried.)

Also, hurrah for Milly! I keep putting her in because I love her so. Actually, I discovered something kind of... convenient about her voice actress, Sayaka Ohara. She also voices Yuko in _xxxHolic_, in which she tortures Watanuki... who is voiced by Jun Fukuyama. Additionally, there is the CLAMP element in both series. There is no escape, it seems. :)

Um, so… yes, next chapter, the PLOT continues! Yayz!

Thanks for reading!

RR xXx


	9. Dance Fer Dance

First of all, an apology for the title of this chapter. I do hope you're all not terribly offended. I omitted a few letters, of course, because I don't want my ass kicked off FFNet for putting profanity in a place where it would be emailed to everyone I am on the Author Alert list of (poor, unsuspecting people who favourited me back in the days of my _Teen Titans_ fanfiction and still get updates about my ficcing activity because they're too lazy to take me off their alerts list), but nonetheless, it's both obvious and it's down _there_, underlined and all.

To explain, it's part of the chorus of the song _You're Gonna Go Far, Kid_ by The Offspring. Part of the lyrics will show up later in the chapter to better make my point, but for now, all I'll say is that that song fits _Code Geass_ – and Lelouch – so well it's almost scary. Anyone who has heard it will surely know what I mean. I mean, yeah, there are songs that can be associated with any character and any fandom, mostly because there are only so many ideas in the world, but it really **is** like _You're Gonna Go Far, Kid_ was written about Lelouch. If you haven't heard it, do something about it. Lelouch-vibes or not, it's a great song. I have never come across anybody who has heard it that doesn't like it. ;)

Uh, secondly... well, this really doesn't have anything to do with anything, but this is my first update from the other side of the Atlantic I am usually on. For the next nine months or so, I will in fact be in the USA as opposed to Britain, on an exchange year as part of my degree. Yayz for me. Well, at least I am close to Narroch, so I can physically kick her ass about updates over on _The Monster You Made_...

I think I'm going to enjoy it, but there are things about Britain that I miss already. You guys over here in the US don't seem to find bread and tea anywhere near as important as we do... HOWEVER. Today I had both Starbucks and Pizza Hut. _At the same time_. Only in America are two of my favourites places close enough to be enjoyed at the same time...

Thankyou to: **Patet, Asami-chan37, Serena the Hikari of Love, Lost In A Dark Wood, Crispy Rice, HyperAnimeGirl, realityfling18, Andraiyel, BakayaroManiac, SutaakiHitori, rpln, KarimaTinCan, teito13, SeraphChronoMage, chibi maakochan, Altair718, Bistre Melancholia, Nusku, LovelyLittleAngel, PikaNecoMico, nameless14, Arkaham, Marge, HisHeavenxx, Yina K, DeathsLastPrayer, Aria DC al Fine, purechidori, abls, awesomenesslyangelic, Diana Prince, xxStrangestFruitxx, CatalunaRei, Blackrose2005, MithLuin, Fogwood **and **tweekers**!

As a last random thing that I'm sure you all don't care about in lieu of the fact that I am stalling you from reading the SuzaLulu-ness that you've been waiting over a month for (sorry!), today, October 1st 2009, is both the two-year anniversary of _Poison Apple_ first being posted and, more importantly, the four-year anniversary of me sashaying onto FFNet in the first place.

Well. I say "sasashyed". It was more like I limped on and begged my friends already on here (one of whom was AutumnDynasty) to help me post things. Then someone reviewed me and I was hooked and never left.

Speaking of **AutumnDynasty**, she KO-ed this chapter using a combo that consisted of Ex-Ex-Square-Down-Triangle-Up-Up-R2-L1-Ex-Ex-Down-Down-Circle-Square.

It was awesome.

The Ghost in the Machine

IX – Dance Fucker Dance

"_Hey, you've got good fingers." C.C. presented him with her back, lifting her hair to reveal the open corset-like lacing of her dress. "Make them useful."_

"_Good fingers, huh?" Lelouch replied dryly, sitting up from where he'd been sprawled on the bed and obediently beginning to lace her up. "That's a compliment?"_

"_Thin and nimble," C.C. said complacently. "Perfect for doing up corsets."_

"_Most people would say that they're pianist's fingers," Lelouch bit out. "But I suppose that's too much for you, right?"_

"_Can you play a piano?"_

"_Yes, actually." He gave the knot a final tug. "Too tight?"_

"_It's fine, thankyou." C.C. let her hair fall again and sashayed away towards the dresser. She sat down in front of the mirror and picked up a brush, beginning to pull the main body of her wave of green hair into a ponytail._

_Lelouch lay down on his side again and watched her do it. He wasn't remotely attracted to her – even if he hadn't been gay, her personality would have put him off – but he was the first to admit that she was beautiful. He got the impression that C.C. had stopped caring about how she looked during the years and years and years she had been immortal, her visage never changing – but now that she had begun to age again, she seemed to have a renewed interest in her appearance. He didn't think it was vanity – it seemed more like…_

…_fascination._

_He, of course, hadn't aged a day since the morning of the Zero Requiem. He wasn't sure if he cared or not. He supposed he hadn't looked like this long enough to begin to know the despair of immortality every time he caught sight of his reflection. _

_He did wonder about Nunnally and Suzaku, though. It was something that made him feel a little sad. Nunnally, his younger sister by three years, would now look the same age as him. Suzaku, seven months his junior, would now look three years older than him. He supposed that it didn't really matter – he was never going to see either of them again, at least not in person – but it was just that…_

_Well, three years. That was nothing. And yet it bothered him. What about twenty years, when Nunnally was thirty-eight and Suzaku was forty-one? What about __**fifty**__ years, when Nunnally was sixty-eight and Suzaku was seventy-one? Even C.C. would be an old woman by then – a __**real**__ old woman – and he…_

_He would still be eighteen. He'd be forever eighteen, and they would all leave him behind, and in a __**hundred**__ years—_

"_Lelouch, can you pass me that hair tie?" C.C. asked, cutting into his thoughts without apology. "It's on the bedside table."_

"_Oh. Sure." He pushed himself up, reached for the black ponyband and threw it towards her; she caught it deftly and began to loop her hair through it._

_He wondered what people thought when they saw he and C.C. together. Perhaps at first they'd looked like boyfriend and girlfriend, but now that she'd surpassed him, maybe they thought she was his older sister? That, or maybe that she was the kind of girl into younger men. Not that he looked __**much**__ younger than her, but… it was definitely there. Still, he thought that he would __**rather**__ be with C.C. than Suzaku. It was okay to watch C.C. age – it was what she wanted, and he hadn't known her as a child._

_He didn't think he could stand to watch Suzaku get older and leave him behind._

_C.C. gave her ponytail a last yank to properly secure it and stood, scrutinising her appearance in the mirror. Her dress was black and white, the old-fashioned style she liked, with a tight laced-up bodice and knee-length skirt shaped by several layers of petticoats. It suited her build – she was still fairly petite, curvy enough, but she'd never be like Milly or Kallen._

"_You look nice, C.C.," he said as she turned her back towards the mirror and looked over her shoulder at the back of her dress._

_He didn't know quite why he'd said it, because although he'd meant it, the way she looked at him made him wish he'd just kept his mouth shut._

"_What?" he barbed irritably, meeting her gaze sullenly._

_She shrugged and averted her gaze back to the mirror; but as she did so, she suddenly spoke:_

"_Thankyou." Both her expression and her tone were the usual deadpan, but something about the way she wouldn't look at him again made him acknowledge that she __**had**__ accepted the compliment and was perhaps even… touched._

_Maybe._

"_Are you ready?" she asked at length. "We can go and get some breakfast at that café down the street."_

"_I just need to put my shoes on."_

"_They're over here."_

_He nodded and got off the bed, crossing the room over to the dresser, beside which he'd left his shoes the night before. C.C. moved aside so that he could get at them, watching him sink into the chair at the dresser she'd previously occupied as he put them on._

_They matched in monochrome today, he in black trousers and a black waistcoat with a white shirt underneath. They, companions in wandering the world, looked rather perfect together._

"_Lelouch," she said, "do you regret it?"_

"_Do I…?" He looked up at her. "Regret what?"_

"_Making the contract with me."_

"_You asked me that before."_

"_I did. But that __**was**__ before. It was before the Zero Requiem. It was before—" _

"_No, I don't," he interrupted. He straightened, turning away from her – only to find himself looking right at his own reflection instead. "I needed Geass. I know it sounds arrogant, but if you hadn't given me the power to make change, the world would still be as it was. How could I regret making the world better?"_

"_But if you had never accepted Geass, you wouldn't be immortal."_

"_No, I expect I'd just be a student at some university, probably with Shirley and Rivalz and Suzaku and…" He trailed off, realising what she'd just tricked him into saying. "There had to be some kind of sacrifice, didn't there?" he snapped. "What do you think I'd rather; rotting in this room with you or existing in a world that hadn't __**needed**__ changing in the first place? Don't you think I'd be happier in a world where Shirley and Euphemia and even Rolo hadn't died and Suzaku hadn't had to give up his identity to pay for my sins—?"_

"_So do you regret it?"_

"_No." He clenched his fists. "Even all that aside, no matter what kind of 'What If' world I'd prefer, I don't regret it. C.C., I don't know what you want me to say. Do you __**want**__ me to curse you for giving me Geass?" _

_She gave a shrug; he watched her in the mirror._

"_Perhaps," she said quietly. "After all, when I gave you Geass, it was partly to give you a weapon to protect yourself with against the Britannian soldiers who were going to kill you, but mostly it was because I wanted someone to pass my Code on to. My reasoning was mostly selfish. I didn't give it to you to start a revolution or to change the world with."_

"_And now you feel guilty?" Lelouch asked scornfully._

"_Well…" She was silent for a long moment. "If you must know, I hate Geass."_

_He blinked, taken by surprise by this admission. Sure, she'd never seemed overly __**enthusiastic**__ about Geass, but…_

"_It's not because of anything you did with it," she went on. "It's not because of anything Mao did. I don't even think it's because of anything I did. It's nothing specific. I've simply come to loathe it."_

"_Because of the Code?"_

"_As far as I understand, a Code and Geass are much the same thing – that is, they are made up of identical components. However, you could say that… the order those components are in differ. A Code blocks the use of Geass but allows the holder to give Geass to others via a contract. The contract essentially makes a copy of the Code's components, but scrambles them into the order that makes up Geass as opposed to a Code. Geass is essentially a 'raw data' version of a Code, giving its holder a supernatural ability but blocking the ability to replicate it."_

"_You're making it sound something like a computer virus," Lelouch said dryly._

_C.C. shrugged._

"_Perhaps they have their similarities," she said. "I've never been able to decide if Geass is organic, mechanical or magical. It doesn't seem to be quite any of those things."_

"_Maybe it's all three."_

_She gave a nod._

_Lelouch was quiet for a while himself._

"_Suzaku hated Geass, too," he said finally. "And Nunnally. They both thought it was evil and despicable and—"_

"_It is easy to understand why," C.C. cut in calmly. "However, I do not think that that is why __**I**__ hate it."_

"_It certainly is a way of cheating," Lelouch mused. "It seems that no matter what ability manifested itself in the user, it was some form of manipulating other people. I could bend other people's wills, Rolo could steal other people's time, my father could rewrite other people's memories, my mother could take other people's hearts… Even Mao could hear what other people were thinking."_

"_And I made other people love me," C.C. said, nodding. "Are you seeing a pattern? There is no privacy to Geass. All it does is make other people dance to a tune of your choosing. If nothing else, it is fitting that Geass is a purely human ability – it cements our dependency on community. If you were all by yourself, what good would Geass be? But it's not just that. Geass also makes people false. People loved me even though they didn't want to. People followed your orders even though they didn't __**want**__ to. …And don't you think people are fake enough as they are?"_

"_People need to be able to lie. You agreed with me in the World of C. Both you and Suzaku did."_

"_People need to be able to lie because they do not __**want**__ to tell the truth – not because they simply can't tell the difference between a lie and reality."_

"_So you're saying that Geass… assimilates people into a kind of fake conformity?"_

"_I suppose so." She came behind him and put her hand over his left eye, no longer scarred with Geass, and then slid it upwards onto his forehead, pushing his fringe back so that she could see the crimson mark there. "I don't think it should be allowed to exist," she went on, covering the Geass insignia with her slender hand._

"_No?"_

"_No. And I'm not the only one." She gave a small sigh and wrapped her arms around him, resting her chin on the top of his head. "V.V. thought it should be destroyed as well."_

* * *

Show me how to lie, you're getting better all the time

And turning all against one is an art that's hard to teach

Another clever word sets off an unsuspecting herd

And as you step back into line, the mob jumps to their feet

Now dance fucker dance, man, he never had a chance

And no-one even knew it was really only you

_You're Gonna Go Far, Kid – _The Offspring

* * *

"So…" Suzaku paused, shutting the door to the shrine with his weight, watching Lelouch pad lightly over to the bedding roll. "…Am I to understand that you now believe it safe to reveal yourself to me after all this time of faking amnesia?"

"Suzaku, please don't be bitter about it," Lelouch replied shortly. "It seemed like the best course of action to make you drop your guard so that I could observe you. I haven't seen you for three years – anything could have happened. Maybe… maybe you were put under _Geass_ or something—"

"The only Geass I'm under is yours," Suzaku interrupted sharply. "You have my word on that."

"I was _going_ to say," Lelouch went on irritably, "that you will also recall that I was under the influence of Refrain for most of the time you were being hospitable to me, so I was hardly in my right mind to begin with."

"You seem to have recovered," Suzaku said stiffly.

Lelouch gave a slow nod.

"The withdrawals are over. My Code has repaired the damage the drug did to my body. For the record, I accept your apology. I know it was an attempt to help me – a severely misguided one, but kind nonetheless."

"How nice that you've come back to spread forgiveness and goodwill to all men," Suzaku snapped.

"_Suzaku_!" Lelouch seemed surprised at him. "Don't speak to me like that. For heaven's sake, what's the matter with you? You were laying the nursemaid act on really thick when you thought I didn't have my memories."

"Yes, I thought that you didn't have your memories!" Suzaku bit out. "I _didn't_ think that you were manipulating me – as usual. God, you're back five minutes and already you're—"

"I _said_ I was sorry!" Lelouch burst out. "Do you think I wanted to do it? Why do you think I hardly spoke? _Because_, Suzaku, it was really hard to be around you, and to be around Nunnally, and pretend that I didn't know who you were! I know it was painful for you, thinking I had no memory, but don't think I didn't suffer for it too. I wanted nothing more than to hug Nunnally and tell her that I love her and I _couldn't_."

"And now what?" Suzaku spat, approaching him. "Now you're trying to make me feel sorry for you?" He gave a bitter little laugh. "I don't know why I'm surprised. You're always scheming, aren't you? Everything is always an act, even _dying_."

"Fine words coming from you," Lelouch replied acidly. "You don't seem to have changed at all either. You act like a saint but inside you're filled with loathing. You're a hypocrite – you always have been, and I thought forcing you to be Zero might wring it out of you. Apparently not. All you want to do is die, and to hell with everything else—"

"_Shut up_!" Suzaku slapped him across the face to assert the furious imperative, though the action did more to cut Lelouch off than the words did. "It's alright for you to come back after all these years and preach to me, isn't it, Lelouch?!"

Lelouch had buckled slightly under the force of the blow but remained standing, and straightened again very slowly with a deep, silent sigh. He raised his deep violet eyes towards Suzaku, wearing an expression of wearied patience.

Catching his breath, Suzaku met his gaze, his hand still raised and tingling from the forceful contact it had made with Lelouch's cheek. The crimson welt, stark against Lelouch's pale complexion, had already risen, but the immortal boy didn't react to it. It had probably hurt – and probably _still_ hurt – but he said nothing.

He had shut up, exactly as Suzaku had wanted him to.

"Oh, _god_…" Suzaku buried his face in his hands, fingertips digging into his own skull. He didn't know what the hell was wrong with him – he'd wanted Lelouch to have his memories back, to look at him and speak to him like he knew him, to not be some pathetic little drug-addicted shadow of himself that Suzaku had to mother, and yet…

Now Lelouch exactly as he'd wanted stood before him and all he could do was take out his rage and grief on him.

Lelouch was right. He hadn't changed. After all, the first time he had ever _met_ Lelouch, he had smacked him one. He didn't seem to have learned anything even eleven years later.

But it _hurt_. It hurt to see him. It had been three years; three whole years of thinking that Lelouch was dead, reliving that bright beautiful morning when he had donned Zero's mask and carried out Lelouch's final wish.

Or what he had _presumed_ was Lelouch's "final wish", at least.

"_How dare you_…" He looked at Lelouch through his fingers. "Just showing up like this after… after I spent three years thinking… thinking you were…!" He suddenly grabbed at the other boy, pulling him close, so tightly that it wasn't really an embrace; it was too painful and crushing. And yet it couldn't be anything else, either – it was a way of holding Lelouch to be comforted by his contact. He buried his face in the immortal boy's shoulder. "How _dare_ you come back after everything you…"

But he couldn't finish. His whole body had begun to shake and his voice was obstructed by a sudden painful lump in his throat and he could feel the tears starting to spill, hot and salty and persistent, breaking through the barrage of his eyelashes as he squeezed his eyes tightly shut to stop them.

He couldn't. He hadn't cried properly in a very long time, but now, holding Lelouch as tightly as he possibly could – one arm around his waist and the other up against the length of his back like a second spine, one hand sunk deeply into his hair – he found that he couldn't help it. The sobs raked through him and he felt every ounce of strength drain out of his body, and when he sank to his knees Lelouch came down with him with absolutely no protest or resistance.

He really _had_ gone completely silent again – Suzaku's choked, despairing sobs the only sounds bouncing off the walls of the empty, ruined shrine. Lelouch's silence had bewildered Suzaku before simply because it was unlike him to not have anything to say, but right now he seemed to realise that he'd said enough. Of course, Suzaku had been no less cruel, but the thing was, everything Lelouch had said had been perfectly _true_.

Suzaku _was_ a hypocrite. He knew he was, and that he always had been. He'd only ever followed the rules exactly by the book unless it benefited his own selfish desires to break them. He'd always been able to love others but not himself. He hated to kill and yet he did it over and over and over again. The silent boy clutched in his arms – the one who hadn't aged despite being older than him – was one of his victims.

So was Lloyd.

Clinging to Lelouch wouldn't make it all better. He knew that. But it felt good to _have_ someone to cling to after all this time. He couldn't crumble like this in front of Nunnally – he was the thing for _her_ to hang on to. For three years, he had had no-one.

Of course, perhaps that had been entirely the point, for what did _Zero_ have to cry over?

(Ah, but these weren't Zero's tears. These were Suzaku Kururugi's.)

_Did I grieve properly for you, Lelouch; or did I just hide behind Zero's mask the way you wanted me to…?_

He pushed Lelouch down to the bedding roll, gently rocking his weight against him. Lelouch yielded completely, lying on his back with his gaze fixed on the ceiling, Suzaku on top of him, lying between his legs, exactly as they had been before. It was Suzaku who cried now, however, still sobbing into Lelouch's shoulder.

He felt Lelouch gently reach up and put his arms around him in return; and clutched tighter still at him.

Once, he'd felt that, if his wicked soul was as damned as he thought it must be, Euphemia was the only one who could save it. It had taken longer for him to take the same impression from Lelouch; but in those last days, when he'd loved Lelouch in that ironic white, he'd seen it in him too.

The promise of salvation in return for his faith.

He'd made a twisted religion out of Euphy and he'd done the same with Lelouch.

Because he was a hypocrite. He was wicked. A total sham who loved machines because they could kill him but not hurt him.

Not the way Lelouch could.

(But can machines save?)

* * *

"_They applauded." Euphemia turned towards him as she said it, her amethyst eyes bright and shining. "They really did, Suzaku."_

"_I know." Her smile, big and beautiful, was contagious, and he couldn't help but return it. "I think it was Lloyd who started it."_

"_Earl Asplund." Euphemia gave a nod. "He's a good man."_

"_I, uh… yeah. He is." _

_Euphemia gave a sudden glance around, fidgeting with a strand of her long pink hair. _

"_Where is Darlton?" she asked._

"_He was right behind us, wasn't he?" Suzaku looked around too but found himself coming up with much the same impression as Euphemia: That they were apparently alone._

_It didn't really matter. He had every right to be with her. She'd officially appointed him as her knight barely ten minutes ago._

_He looked at her. He couldn't see much of Lelouch in her, but she bore a resemblance to Nunnally despite having a different mother. In fact, she looked more like Nunnally than she looked like Cornelia. Lelouch and Cornelia… had a different kind of beauty. It was sharper, more refined and elegant and… _

…_cold._

_Euphy wasn't so much beautiful as she was pretty. Of course, she was much younger than her sister – but compared to even Lelouch, she looked so much more innocent. She didn't have the kind of eyes that hid another personality._

_Not like Lelouch had. _

_But, really, she was nothing like Lelouch, half-sister or not. He loved Lelouch. He wasn't sure if he __**loved**__ Euphy, at least not like that, but the fact was that he didn't feel so much in despair when he was with her. Lelouch and Euphy both wanted things to change, but Lelouch was simply so angry and bitter about it; when he talked about how Britannia needed to change, it made Suzaku impatient with him. He didn't want to hear it. He wasn't even sure if he __**agreed**__ with him, much less believed him._

_But when Euphy said it, he put his faith in her. It wasn't just that he believed her – he felt that she believed herself too._

_Perhaps because Euphy didn't rebel against everything. This whole knight thing… He looked down at himself, at his new clothing, and wondered what Lelouch would have to say about it. __**Something**__, no doubt. _

"_Do you like it?" Euphemia asked suddenly; she nodded at his outfit, apparently having noticed him looking at it himself. "It suits you."_

"_Oh, th-thankyou." He couldn't hold her gaze, suddenly too embarrassed to, knocked off-balance by the compliment. "Yeah, I like it."_

"_I'm glad." She had leaned closer, but averted her own gaze as well. "I… um, I…"_

"_Euphy," Suzaku started. "No, I'm sorry… I-I mean, Princess Euphemia—"_

"_You can still call me 'Euphy'." She looked back at him and smiled again. "I like it when you do. It feels… like we're friends and not just… just…"_

"_I… okay. Euphy."_

"_Yes?"_

"_I…" _

_All this time, despite the erratic stopping and starting of their speech, they had been drifting closer and closer together without pause. Suzaku knew this feeling – this strange, blind course that drew mouths into magnetic kisses without either party really thinking about it. The first time he and Lelouch had kissed, it had happened exactly like this._

_And now it had happened again. He didn't touch Euphemia too much, only putting one hand to the nape of her neck to help her tilt her head. She was smaller than Lelouch, who was almost the same height as Suzaku – in that respect, it was more difficult to kiss her. She had to stretch and he had to bend._

_She kissed differently to Lelouch, too. She was more reserved, perhaps more nervous – she didn't have Lelouch's domineering personality so she didn't fight for supremacy so Suzaku didn't feel the urge to slam her against something. He never hurt Lelouch on purpose, but he __**was**__ rough with him sometimes – he would never have dreamed of biting Euphy, for example, or pinning her arms up over her head._

_No, this… this was much purer. What he felt with Lelouch was real desire – real synchronisation. __**This**__ kiss was more like something out of a fairytale._

_The princess sweetly kissing her brave and noble knight._

—

_Lelouch was lying on the bed when Suzaku finally got back to his room. _

_The Japanese boy blinked at him, surprised to see him._

"_Lelouch…" He shut the bedroom door. "I… I thought I locked the door."_

"_You should probably come up with a passcode that's more difficult to guess," Lelouch replied lazily. He sat up, sliding his long legs off the mattress and setting his feet on the floor. _

"_What are you doing here?" Suzaku asked. He actually wasn't all that pleased to see him; his mind was still reeling with the realisation that he'd kissed Euphemia and had actually found it… quite enjoyable. But, of course, he felt guilty about Lelouch. He wasn't sure if one kiss actually counted as cheating, but he knew Lelouch would hit the roof either way if he found out._

_He didn't want Euphy more than Lelouch. He wouldn't have traded him for her. But that didn't change the fact that he didn't want Lelouch in his face right now. He wanted some space to wallow in guilt; and besides, coming straight from his knighting ceremony (and kissing Euphy) back to Ashford Academy (and kissing Lelouch) really __**would**__ make him feel like he was cheating._

"_What kind of stupid question is that?" Lelouch asked flatly, rising gracefully. "I came to congratulate you, of course."_

"_I… oh." Suzaku finally stepped away from the door, coming towards the bed. "Did… did you see the knighting ceremony? They broadcasted it live—"_

"_No, I didn't." Lelouch gave a shrug. "Sorry. Nunnally did, though. Sayoko watched it with her."_

"_You… you didn't see it?" Suzaku actually felt rather relieved. _

_Yes, they had applauded. Eventually. For a long time, Lloyd had been clapping all by himself. _

_He was glad that Lelouch hadn't seen that. The ex-prince was difficult enough when it came to the politics of Britannians and Elevens and Japanese and Honorary Britannians. He didn't want to give him any more ammunition._

_Lelouch came very close to him and Suzaku readied himself for a kiss more caustic than Euphy's; but Lelouch in fact only stepped past him. He circled Suzaku very slowly, looking him up and down from every angle, occasionally touching a button or ornate detail. He ran his fingers over the hilt of the sword hanging at Suzaku's waist on completing his vulture-like examination and returning to stand in front of him._

"_Does His Highness approve?" Suzaku asked acidly, feeling defensive of the way he was dressed in response to Lelouch's unimpressed expression._

_Lelouch raised his eyes towards him._

"_Does __**Her**__ Highness approve?" he flung back at him. "Isn't that the more important question here?"_

"_She said she liked it."_

_Lelouch gave another offish shrug._

"_Good." He bit the word out and said nothing else. _

_Suzaku blinked at him again; and then realised… Was it possible that Lelouch… was jealous of Euphemia, his own half-sister? Jealous because she'd made Suzaku her knight? Was that why he was being like this?_

_Twice. Twice Lelouch had said it. That Suzaku should be __**his**__ knight. And it wasn't that Lelouch exactly need a knight – nor was he entitled to one – but did he still feel that Suzaku had betrayed him by accepting Euphy's request?_

_No, 'betrayed' wasn't quite the right word. It was more like… it seemed that Lelouch felt as though Suzaku had __**rejected**__ him in favour of Euphemia._

"_Lelouch," he sighed, taking the other boy's slender hand and kissing it. "Don't worry. I'll still be your knight too." He turned Lelouch's hand over and kissed his fingertips and his palm and his wrist._

"_Don't patronise me," Lelouch spat; but he didn't try to pull his hand away, nor did he protest when Suzaku, having kissed as much of Lelouch's arm as he could before his Ashford Academy uniform jacket sleeve got in the way, moved up to his throat instead, twisting loose one gold button to get at him. _

_Suzaku had to wrap his arms around him to stop him from collapsing when he nipped along Lelouch's jawline, feeling him go weak at the knees as his teeth grazed the sensitive dip just below his ear._

_He couldn't imagine doing this to Euphy._

_He wondered if Lelouch could taste her on the kiss. Probably not. He hadn't pushed Suzaku away, instead opening his mouth and kissing back and actually beginning to claw at Suzaku's clothing. He backed right up against the bed and fell backwards onto it, using gravity to pull Suzaku down on top of him, keeping their mouths locked the whole time. Suzaku shifted his weight, their bodies sliding together in that perfect way they always did, and Lelouch wrapped his legs around Suzaku, ensnaring his lower half in the spindly cage of them. He hooked his fingers into Suzaku's brand new knight uniform and started to tug at it, indicating that he wanted the other boy to take it off—_

"_Lelouch!" Suzaku pulled away from him in annoyance, firmly disentangling his hands from his jacket. "Stop it. You're going to wreck it."_

"_Take it off, then!" Lelouch snapped. "And hurry up about it."_

"_What, so you can just throw it on the floor?" Suzaku reached back and pried Lelouch's legs loose from his waist, enabling him to kneel up. "Look, I need to go and hang it up. It's new and I'm supposed to be careful with it. I can't exactly make a public appearance as Princess Euphemia's knight with half of the buttons hanging off." He got off both Lelouch and the bed. "I'll go and change. Back in a minute."_

_Lelouch seemed to have gone into shock. He simply stared at Suzaku as the Japanese boy went to the wardrobe to get out a hanger and some casual clothes, as though he couldn't quite believe what had happened. _

_Suzaku ignored him as he undressed and carefully hung up his uniform. He'd known that he'd risked majorly pissing Lelouch off by interrupting the little make-up-and-make-out session to go and lovingly attend to the thing that had been the cause of Lelouch's bad mood in the first place, but he was trained to take good care of his uniform. Besides, it would be insulting to Euphemia to just throw his outfit on the floor barely an hour after she'd knighted him._

_Suzaku didn't think that Lelouch meant any disrespect to his half-sister, but on the other hand… he did get the impression that Lelouch __**had**__ wanted to chuck every last garment that made up Suzaku's new identity to the floor, perhaps out of spite, or simply to soothe his envy._

_He changed into a crimson T-shirt and a pair of soft, faded jeans and went back to the bed. Lelouch was lying on his side, his back to Suzaku, and even though the Japanese boy couldn't see his face, he knew that he was fuming._

"_Hey." He leaned across the bed and tapped Lelouch on the shoulder. "Lelouch?"_

_Lelouch shrank out of his reach, curling up; but he didn't say anything. _

"_Lelouch, don't act like a brat," Suzaku sighed. He clambered back onto the bed and crawled over to Lelouch, on his hands and knees over him. "Come on, I'm changed now. You can do whatever the hell you want."_

"_I'm not in the mood anymore," Lelouch said blandly, glancing up at Suzaku._

"_Well…" Irritated, Suzaku took his shoulder again and very firmly shoved him onto his back, pinning him to the mattress. "That's too bad, because I am."_

_Lelouch shrugged and looked away._

"_Do whatever you want," he muttered._

_Whenever Lelouch said that, he usually didn't actually mean it. However, that wasn't the game he was playing today. This was a mind game, to see if Suzaku actually would force himself on him. Suzaku considered that normally he wouldn't, but the circumstances right now were different. It was less a case of Lelouch not being in a "romantic" mood anymore and more a case of him simply being in more of a mood to get his own back on Suzaku for breaking from him in the middle in favour of putting his new clothes away. _

_Euphy didn't play cruel games like this._

_(But Euphy wasn't here right now.)_

_At first Lelouch gave the impression of being thoroughly disinterested, laying the bored act on thick no matter what Suzaku did to him. It __**was**__ an act, though. Suzaku could see that. Lelouch was enjoying it, but his injured pride wouldn't let him admit it. _

_In the end, however, Suzaku managed to break him; Lelouch clung around the Japanese boy's neck as if nothing on this earth could persuade him to let go and whispered Suzaku's name like a mantra to stop himself from going mad. _

_Suzaku kissed him all over, tasting the salt on his skin, and found that he couldn't help but tell Lelouch, in hushed, breathless tones, that he loved him over and over again. _

_He couldn't imagine doing this with Euphy. He loved Lelouch too much; and that aside, she was so pure and pristine, straight from the crisp white pages of a fairytale, that he didn't think she could be dirtied._

_He lay tangled up with Lelouch under the sheets after it was over, breathing him in; his belly still bubbled with the aftermath of orgasm and Lelouch's arms were wrapped around him and he was so comfortable, so at ease, that he felt that he didn't want to move. At all. Ever again._

"_Congratulations," Lelouch said after a very long time._

"_Hm?" _

"_On being knighted. It's a very big honour, even for someone of the Britannian nobility."_

"_Oh." Suzaku opened his eyes. "Thankyou, Lelouch."_

_Of course, the Britannian boy was probably still spitting blood over it; he was merely forcing himself to be gracious to sort of semi-apologise for the way he had acted before. Suzaku felt bad since Lelouch wasn't the one who had the most to be guilty about here, but nonetheless he didn't breathe a word about kissing Euphy._

_Lelouch was highly unpleasant when he was angry – particularly when he had a right to be._

_Lelouch himself didn't say anything else either. Grudgingly, Suzaku made himself move, pushing himself up on his elbows so that he could look down at Lelouch, who blinked at him curiously._

"_I will still be your knight too, though," Suzaku said, smiling. "__**Someone**__ has to save you from all those ridiculous situations you get yourself into. If I don't do it, who will?"_

"_That's very kind," Lelouch replied stiffly, "but the rules are that you can't pledge yourself to more than one person at a time. If I'm going to keep you, I'll either have to kill Euphemia or make you promise to marry me."_

"_If those are the only two choices, I'll have to pick the marriage," Suzaku said drolly._

"_I was afraid you'd choose that option." Lelouch sighed and looked at the ceiling as Suzaku nuzzled against his neck. "Milly will be thrilled."_

* * *

"Feel better?" Lelouch asked at length.

"Mm." Suzaku shifted a little. "I should string you up…"

He had stopped crying a while ago, the sobs dying away as he lay in Lelouch's arms; they'd simply lain there together in silence for a long time, but it had been the comfortable silence from years ago, not the awkward Lelouch-wouldn't-speak-and-Suzaku-didn't-know-what-to-say-to-him-anyway absence of speech that they'd been engaged in before.

"I know," Lelouch sighed. "I knew you'd be angry. It's only natural. And I _am_ sorry, Suzaku. I hated doing it to you, but… I had to know it was okay to trust you."

"I know. It makes sense." Suzaku finally pushed himself upright, folding his legs up underneath himself. "You're always so careful, aren't you?"

"I get by." Lelouch sat up himself, smiling at Suzaku. "I suppose I owe you a thankyou, too – for coming to save me."

"Oh. That." Suzaku looked away. "It… could have gone better, to be honest."

"Suzaku, you didn't kill Lloyd Asplund," Lelouch said levelly, making Suzaku snap his gaze back to him again. "The Jupiter System Prototype did."

"I was still piloting it," Suzaku murmured miserably.

"Barely." Lelouch snorted. "Trust me, you didn't have any control over that machine whatsoever. Even a brilliant pilot like you or Kallen couldn't make that thing do what you want."

Suzaku frowned at him.

"I didn't…? But I… I mean, when we escaped—"

"That was superficial. Suzaku, get all thoughts of the Lancelot out of your head. The Jupiter and the Mars are nothing like it."

Suzaku blinked.

"Lelouch…" He leaned closer to the immortal boy. "What… what _is_ the Jupiter System Prototype, exactly?"

"Geass," Lelouch replied. "Geass given a monster's form."

Suzaku had absolutely _no_ answer to that. He hadn't been expecting… _that_ to be Lelouch's reply, to say the very least.

Geass. Geass Geass Geass. Geass _again_.

He found his gaze drawn towards Lelouch's forehead. He couldn't see much of the insignia splayed across it – only a tiny sliver of scarlet here and there where his fringe had a gap – but he knew it was there, just like the one on his stomach.

"Is it… C.C.'s Code?" he asked, more to fill the silence than anything else. "The one you have, I mean."

"I…" Lelouch hesitated for a moment. "I have two Codes, actually."

"Oh." Lelouch's response knocked him for six again, but Suzaku did his best to recover. "Is that… is that why you have two marks?"

Lelouch shook his head.

"No. C.C. had two marks despite only having one Code."

"So…" Suzaku was perplexed by the sudden weird quasi-mathematical turn this conversation had taken. "You have… _three_?"

"Yeah." Lelouch pushed up his right sleeve and upturned his wrist so that Suzaku could see the tiny bird-like symbol outstretched across his delicate blue veins. "Ironically, this is the one I've had the longest."

"How… I never noticed…" Suzaku took his hand to look closer at the insignia. It was very small, but also very definitely there.

"That's probably because you were putting the Refrain in _this_ arm," Lelouch said, giving his left arm a twist.

"No, I mean…" Suzaku looked up at him, still holding his wrist. "You have two Codes. One of them is C.C.'s. So the other one… must be—"

"My father's. Well, V.V.'s." Lelouch ran his own fingers over the mark at his wrist. "This one is from that Code. The other two are from C.C.'s. For some reason her Code seems to manifest two symbols. Neither of us knows why."

"When…" Suzaku paused, trying to think how best to articulate exactly what he was trying to say. "When I… I mean, when we carried out the final stage of the Zero Requiem, how many Codes did you have?"

"Two."

"But I…!" Suzaku looked at him in exasperation. "Lelouch, I would have _noticed_ all these marks on you! You might have been able to hide them from everyone else, but _I_…" He trailed off again, not be able to think of a more delicate way of putting it when what he _meant_ was "We were going at it every night like rabbits and it's not like I let you keep even a scrap of clothing on, now _is_ it?".

"Until the morning of the Zero Requiem," Lelouch replied, knowing what he was trying to say, "I had only one Code – the one I received from my father in the World of C. This mark is so small that I was able to hide it from you even when I wasn't dressed. I took C.C.'s that morning while you were still asleep. _Those_ marks, as you can see, are far more noticeable."

"Why?" Suzaku asked. "Why take C.C.'s if you were already immortal?"

"Because I promised." Lelouch looked at Suzaku briefly, then back at his wrist, which Suzaku was still holding. "Geass isn't a gift, Suzaku. It's a contract. She held up her end of the bargain. It was only fair that I held up mine."

"C.C., she… Did you leave with her?"

Lelouch nodded.

"I've been with her for the entire three years since the Zero Requiem."

"Where is she now? Why isn't she with you? Is she… she's alright, isn't she?"

"I expect so. I told her to stay behind. That's why I'm alone."

Lelouch's answers were informative enough but still pretty closed-off. It didn't seem like he particularly wanted to talk about C.C., but Suzaku couldn't help but find it weird that Lelouch would suddenly separate from her after so long. He knew from experience that Lelouch and C.C. bickered like an old married couple and that she did things that annoyed him, often deliberately, but they'd always seemed to have an odd bond of trust between them, too. So he didn't think that they'd had a fight and split up because of that.

Which meant that Lelouch had an agenda – something so secret that he hadn't even involved C.C., his perpetual partner-in-crime.

Unless it was dangerous and he was thinking of her welfare. After all, she obviously wasn't immortal anymore.

What Suzaku really wanted to ask was what Lelouch was doing here – why he'd come back, why he'd been on Kaminejima, why Cornelia had been able to capture him there—

But found himself asking about C.C. instead.

"Is she happy now?" he pressed. "Now that she isn't immortal anymore?"

Lelouch shrugged.

"She seems it. She's started aging again, certainly. She'll look like the old hag she is in no time."

"And what about _you_, Lelouch?" Suzaku finally let go of his wrist, allowing Lelouch to cover the symbol with his cuff again. "Are _you_ happy?"

"With being immortal?" Lelouch gave another shrug. "It's alright. It has it perks, I suppose. You have no idea how many times I've died."

"I can imagine," Suzaku replied flatly. "I've seen you die four times myself, and _three_ of those deaths have been in the last twenty-four hours."

"See? That's a perk."

Suzaku wasn't sure if he meant it or not. The endless cycle of dying and reviving had been exactly what C.C. had despaired of. Perhaps Lelouch hadn't had the time to grow sick of it yet, but Suzaku was with C.C. entirely on this one.

Particularly since _he_ seemed to be incapable of getting killed even _without_ a Code.

Lelouch had averted his gaze to the wall, studying the stubborn thread of ivy resolutely marching up it; it gave Suzaku a chance to look at him again properly. Three years wasn't a very long time and didn't do much to age a person – at twenty-one, Suzaku was really only slightly taller and broader than he had been at eighteen, his face having thinned a little too to make him look a smidge more mature. The differences were minimal, really – but they _were_ there.

Lelouch really, truly hadn't aged at all. Suzaku wondered what he would look like if he had. Not _much_ different, probably, but…

"Do you wish I'd aged, Suzaku?" Lelouch suddenly asked, not looking at him.

Suzaku blinked at him, stunned; but then narrowed his eyes suspiciously.

"Are you reading my mind?" he asked stiffly.

"No," Lelouch replied absently. "You'd know if I was in your head, believe me. It's just that you're making it pretty obvious that you're giving me the once-over."

"Oh." Suzaku looked away. "Sorry."

Lelouch looked back at him with a lazy smile.

"_I_ wish that I had aged," he went on. "You're not supposed to look older than me, Mr July-Birthday."

"I apologise," Suzaku said wryly. "Still, I'm glad you decided to come back now as opposed to in forty years or whatever."

"Why?" Lelouch leaned in close to him. "Do you think I wouldn't want you anymore if you were old and wrinkled?"

"Oh, you would?" Suzaku breathed, aware of how close Lelouch was getting, how close their mouths were becoming.

"Of course I would. You'd still be Suzaku."

Suzaku smiled and tried to close the kiss; but Lelouch suddenly pulled back from him and stood up, shooting Suzaku a smug little smile of his own as he waltzed away.

Suzaku huffily watched the chain from the ankle of Lelouch's trousers trail across the floor after him, thinking that if he grabbed it, Lelouch would trip and fall flat on his face and _that_ would teach him to tease people about still being attracted to them when they were sixty-one even though _he_ would still be eighteen physically.

He didn't, though; instead he rose and followed Lelouch as the immortal boy wandered over to a door leading to one of the smaller prayer rooms. It was a traditional Japanese sliding paper door, the wooden frame rotting and covered with moss and the paper itself gone black in places with mould. It didn't seem like the kind of thing that Lelouch would normally want to touch, even with a ten-foot pole, but he grasped the handle and pushed against it with a leftwards motion to get the door open.

The handle broke off in his hand.

"A sin, isn't it?" he murmured, looking down at the crumbled damp wood as he opened his palm. "That they let this place just go to hell, I mean."

"I'm not surprised," Suzaku replied stoically. He reached over Lelouch, slipped his hand into the crack of a gap that Lelouch had managed to open before the handle had given up the ghost and pushed the door open. It was very stiff, the swollen wood of the frame no longer fitting properly into the gutters, but he managed to open it about halfway before it began to strain and finally jarred. "Still, I don't know why you want to go poking around in here. It's probably swarming with rats."

"I like very much that you didn't take that into consideration when you made home-sweet-home out of this place for us a few hours ago," Lelouch said primly, ducking under his arm and slipping through into the next room.

Suzaku was about to follow him but found himself pausing to look at the sliding door. Opening it hadn't done it any favours – some of the paper had torn and now hung from the cracked wooden frame like limp flags. The moss had been here so long that some of it had yellowed and died, crumbling at the slightest touch.

This kind of ruin wasn't pretty the way that old Shinto shrine that Lelouch had found behind the gym of Ashford Academy had been. This was actually pretty _disgusting_, less a sign of Nature taking back what was hers and more symbolic of simple neglect. It made him feel sad to look at the torn, mouldy paper of the sliding doors and the peeling, sun-faded wall scrolls. The Kururugi Shrine hadn't aged well at all – it was too man-made to fall gracefully into disrepair.

"Suzaku!" Lelouch reappeared around the crusty door again. "Come and look. Bring the lamp."

He vanished once more. Suzaku wondered what he'd found and obediently went to get the lamp from where he'd left it over next to the bedding roll. As he picked it up he heard the sudden soft, high, musical sound of…

…what sounded very much like a piano.

He held the lamp aloft as he entered the adjacent room. It was tiny and smelt damp and earthy. The only scroll on the wall was so badly damaged that he couldn't even read what it said, and there was a lumpy pile in the far corner of the room, a filthy sheet thrown over it to conceal whatever it was.

The only other two things in the room were Lelouch and the piano he had found. It too had had a sheet over it, but Lelouch had dragged it off and thrown it to the floor. He was standing at it, looking at it critically, every now and then reaching out to touch one of the keys very gently.

"It looks like the one that used to be in the drawing room of the house," he said as Suzaku approached. "I know you had about three. Wonder what it's doing out here."

Suzaku put the lamp down on the top of the piano to give them a better scope of light.

"This is the oldest one," he said after studying it for a moment. "Yeah, you're right, there were two others. I'll bet they sold them – the grand piano and the new one. They probably couldn't sell this one so they dumped it out here to rot."

"Makes you wonder why they bothered putting a sheet over it." Lelouch ran his hand over the keys. A few of them were a little sunken – the whole piano seemed to dip in the middle as though the weight of the keys had caused the rotting wood to begin to sag. It had also started to fall victim to the endless armies of moss and ivy, the thick veins of the latter crawling up the wooden body even beneath the sheet. "It's such a beautiful piano," the immortal boy went on, pulling out the stool and giving it a kick to see if it collapsed. It didn't, so he risked sinking onto it; dust rose as he settled, but the seat held his weight. "It's probably horribly out of tune, though. Look at the state of the keys here in the middle."

"I know." Suzaku picked up the lamp again and lifted the piano's lid to have a look at the strings; he actually didn't know much about pianos, but he was aware that the keys weren't supposed to be sunken and crooked. "Try playing it."

He made it sound as though it was for a purely scientific study – to see if a warped, rotting piano could still produce music – but actually what he really wanted was to hear Lelouch play. He'd last heard him play the piano three years ago – there'd been a grand piano in the palace that had been their residence whilst they had been the Emperor of Britannia and the Knight of Zero (and C.C., simply along for the ride) and Lelouch had liked to fool about with it. He had had two contrary reasons for playing beautifully: If he felt like showing off or if he thought that nobody was close enough to hear him.

Sometimes Suzaku had sank against the other side of the door and closed his eyes and listened to him play, fascinated that he could create such a beautiful sound from a thing that was really just a bunch of strings and tiny hammers inside a big wooden box.

Lelouch gave a nod and started to play some soft, complicated little melody, perhaps with the intent of hitting almost every key. Some of them were indeed out of tune, and he winced as he hit a few.

"That A minor is out… so is that D flat… and that E sharp…"

Suzaku simply nodded, his gaze fixated on the piano's innards, watching Lelouch manipulate its mechanism to make music. Despite the fact that some of notes were very badly off, it still sounded pretty good.

He stopped. Suzaku looked up. Lelouch's brow was furrowed and he was muttering something under his breath.

"What's wrong?" Suzaku asked.

"Oh, nothing." Lelouch gave his head little shake. "I was just trying to remember how it goes. Let's see…"

He put his slender hands back to the keys and pressed his fingers down, beginning to play properly, a tune with a lot more power and passion to it, his whole body moving with the melody; the dark fronds of his hair moved forwards every now and then, swaying across his cheeks, and his fringe stirred too, the Geass insignia flashing between the jet-black strands. After a long moment of concentrating very hard on the uneven keys, he seemed to get the hang of where they were and his violet eyes slid closed, playing the thing blind.

Suzaku recognised the tune, though he had no idea what it was called; he'd heard Lelouch play it before, many times, on that huge white grand piano, the breathy, beautiful sound filling the whole of the massive room, bright with the sunlight that streamed in the through the huge floor-to-ceiling windows.

Somehow, though, it sounded even better played in this dark, decrepit little room on a piano that been on the 'Has Seen Better Days' list thirty years ago. Lelouch could play it on an ancient, wrecked, falling-to-pieces excuse for a musical instrument, every other note he hit falling flat, and it still sounded amazing.

Suzaku put the lid down again, set the lamp down on top of it and moved behind Lelouch. He carefully put his hands on top of Lelouch's, not restricting them, but enough so that the movement of the immortal boy's hands manipulated his too, making a reversed puppet of himself; Lelouch was the one controlling Suzaku despite being beneath him.

Lelouch tipped his head back to look up at Suzaku, opening his eyes again. He smiled. Suzaku bent down towards him and kissed him upside-down, and when their lips touched, Lelouch stopped playing. Suzaku caught his wrists, grasping them tightly; when Lelouch eventually broke from him to get his breath, the Japanese boy lifted his hands and kissed them instead – his knuckles and his fingertips his palms and his wrists.

He even kissed the Geass symbol. It tasted exactly like Lelouch.

"Hey, Suzaku," Lelouch murmured when he felt him do it, "do you know _The Red Shoes_?"

"_The Red Shoes_?" Suzaku lifted his mouth from Lelouch's skin as he repeated it. "I don't think I… It's a story, isn't it?"

"Mm." Lelouch leaned back against Suzaku. "It's by Hans Christian Anderson. I don't know if you could call it a _fairytale_, exactly – it's more like a morality tale. It's about a little girl who is punished for the sin of vanity. She has these pretty red shoes that she's more interested in than anything else, and one day she goes dancing instead of looking after her dying grandmother, only she finds that she can't stop dancing and she can't take the shoes off. She's condemned to dance until she dies, and even then her bones won't stop until they crumble to dust – and then shoes will still keep dancing on and on and on as a reminder of her sin."

"…What about it?" Suzaku asked.

"It's red," Lelouch said, looking at his wrist. "And it makes people do things that they don't want to."

Suzaku was silent. He thought that Lelouch was referring particularly to Euphy – because Euphy's shoes really _had_ become red, stained with the blood of the Japanese she'd butchered even though she hadn't wanted to. She'd danced until she'd died and there'd still been a reminder of what she'd done – red shoes in the form of the name 'Massacre Princess'.

But perhaps Lelouch had been exactly the same. Three years on and he was still remembered as the Demon Emperor. There was no changing it.

"You haven't asked why I came back," Lelouch went on, finally accepting that Suzaku wasn't going to speak. "Are you afraid to?"

"I…" Suzaku finally let go of Lelouch's wrists. "I think… maybe I am, Lelouch."

"Good."

"_Good_?"

"Yes." Lelouch turned around on the piano stool and stood up, facing Suzaku. "Because I'm afraid too."

"Of what?"

"Of Geass." Lelouch looked at his wrist again as though checking a watch. "You see… I came back to destroy it."

* * *

With a thousand lies and a good disguise

Hit 'em right between the eyes

When you walk away, nothing more to say

See the lightning in your eyes

See 'em running for their lives

_You're Gonna Go Far, Kid _– The Offspring

* * *

"_It isn't just that." He said it into C.C.'s chest. He'd bowed his head, probably to stop himself from crying, and C.C. had knelt before him and put her arms around him, holding him close in a rare moment of kindness. "…That is, the Geass activated on its own. The order I gave her was just a stupid… I mean, I shouldn't have said it, it's not like I meant it, and she… she fought it because she didn't… she didn't __**want**__ to obey it."_

"_But that is the nature of Geass," C.C. whispered. "Make it your weapon or damn it to hell, but that's the way it is."_

"_I know." He sounded frustrated. "But I said that it isn't __**just**__ that. It's too easy to blame Geass. It might be a vile power, but __**I'm**__ the one who gave Euphy that order."_

"_You blame yourself."_

_He shrugged hopelessly._

"_It's my fault," he muttered. He gave a sudden coughing little laugh, but there was absolutely no humour in it. "You know, I was jealous of her. Isn't that stupid?"_

"_Because of that boy?"_

"_Mm. It's not that I don't love Euphy, but… I don't know. Somehow I didn't want __**Suzaku**__ to love her. I don't know why. It's stupid. But I was jealous. I don't know why I'm even telling you this, C.C., but I feel like I have to tell someone, because it's just so ridiculous." He gave a shuddering little sigh, pressing deeper in C.C.'s embrace. "Still, I suppose there's nothing to be jealous of anymore. Look what I did to her."_

"_It was an accident." C.C. rested her head on his. "I'm not excusing it, Lelouch. It's simply the truth. It was an accident."_

"_Like it matters. As far as the Black Knights go, I can use this to my advantage. But __**he**__… He'll never forgive me."_

_[Suzaku slept alone that night, not knowing or caring where Lelouch was. He just wanted to be by himself. For hours he lay awake because all he could see when he closed his eyes was Euphy._

_Her dress torn and bloodstained and her expression resolute, her grip on the gun firm, fingers white and taut around the trigger._

_Red red red red red._

_She was dead. She'd died hours ago. Her hand had been in his and she'd smiled at him with the last of her strength and he hadn't had the heart to tell her the truth. He'd told her that the Japanese were happy with all that she had done for them._

_Well, it was true for one. For him. He could never thank her enough for loving him, but before he could even begin to try, her hand had fallen still in his and he'd screamed and they'd dragged him out of the room._

_When he finally drifted off, exhausted, his sleep was fitful; he didn't dream of Euphemia, but rather of Zero. He wasn't entirely sure if he wanted to be fucking Zero but he didn't seem to have much of a choice, and anyway, it wasn't like he just had an empty mask to look at._

_He'd know those big violet eyes anywhere._

_He woke as he came, bolting upright in bed, wide-eyed and panting; the sheets were all twisted around his lower half and now they were wet, cold and clinging to his thighs._

_He felt sick but all he could do was draw up his knees and rest his forehead on them and burst into tears.]_

"_What are you afraid that he won't forgive?" C.C. asked. "You or Geass?" _

* * *

Well, look at that. Suzaku kissed a girl and he liked it. :P

(Figured I'd say it before someone else did.)

Any readers of _Poison Apple_ – yes, I'm at the fairytales again. I'll quit while I'm ahead. _The Red Shoes_ is a kickass story, though. Sad, but awesome.

Trivia: C.C. did indeed have two Geass symbols – one on her forehead and one under her left breast. The latter was possibly from the wound she received when that nun did a number on her back in the day, but, hey, two Geass symbols is two Geass symbols. I thought it best to continue the pattern, so now Lelouch looks like he's rocking some Geass-symbol-decorated bodysock or something... I dunno. O.o

More trivia: Yes, Lelouch can play the piano. When Rolo is dying, there is a flash-memory of he and Lelouch sitting at a piano, and it looks like Lelouch is trying his utmost best to teach his faux-brother to be able to do something other than shank people with his big shiny knife.

So. C.C. and Lelouch. In both the flashback and present-timelines, they both know something. The _same_ something. Unfortunately for you guys, you're in the same position as Suzaku, so I guess you'll just have to come back next time and join the biggest jewel in the _Code Geass_ Crazy Crown on his mission to wring some sense of out the Incredible Back-From-The-Dead Boy.

It's a date.

RR xXx

P.S: Another random announcement, but it's pretty much set that Narroch and I will be attending YaoiCon, held over the weekend of Halloween in California, this year. Will anyone else be there? I fully expect it to be full of crazy, drooling fangirls and could do with a little more moral support... O.o

P.P.S: Kyah, it's October! The first hours of it, perhaps, but still... _Halloween is almost upon us_!!!1!!!11111!!1!!1 :D


	10. Kururugi Suzaku

Well, well, well, and a very Happy Halloween to you all! Is anyone particularly _surprised_ that I updated today? :D

Hn. I say **I** updated. This isn't exactly true. I am in fact, at present (if you are reading this on Halloween), at YaoiCon. (I expect I shall have a full and hilarious report on my return. O.o) SO... my beta, **AutumnDynasty**, agreed to post this for me today, along with the first half of my new _Code Geass_ Halloween Special (I knows, a _Code Geass_ Double Whammy! How generous I am!) and the first chapter of our new _Sweeney Todd_ fic that we started writing together. I believe that both of them – _Monomania_ and _Rawhead and Bloody Bones_, respectively – should now be up on my profile, should you wish to take a look. =) I like to go all out for this occasion – anyone who has been skulking around my fics for at least a year should know that. Even my desktop is decked out with an (official, I might add) _Code Geass_ Halloween-themed picture. It's Suzaku and Lelouch dressed up as cats, C.C. looking rather pleased with the massive lollipop she has managed to procure and tons of sweets.

Oh, and a pumpkin. Because pumpkins are always fun!

Thankyou to: **teito13, Fogwood, Empty Melodies, Aria DC al Fine, 4udball, BakayaroManiac, Nusku, Tweekers, Diana Prince, purechidori, HereIGoAgain, Melancholydreams, KarimaTinCan, SeraphChronoMage, Blackrose2005, Arkaham, Altair718, LovelyLittleAngel, SpunkaySkunk, Patet, souzoulamperouge, XXStrangestFruitXX, Mihua, Hitana, AutumnDynasty, SutaakiHitori, BistreMelancholia, PikaNecoMico, chibi maakochan, DeathsLastPrayer, alyuchiha13, X-Factor-Glory, riceandXDS, YaoiOkami, CatalunaRei, Sae Arara** and **moneymakestheworldgoround**!

This chapter was Trick-or-Treated by **AutumnDynasty**, who was dressed as a bunny. When it wouldn't give her anything, she beat it half to death with her pumpkin candy-basket and, hey, look at that, typos and errors went flying everywhere.

It was a good haul.

The Ghost in the Machine

X – Kururugi Suzaku

"_So what exactly is it that you want me to tell you?" C.C. asked languidly, sipping delicately at her coffee._

"_W-well…" Lelouch stared at her hopelessly. "You just… I mean, you…" He leaned across the table towards her, lowering his voice. "You just blabbed all that stuff about what Geass actually is and how you don't like it and that V.V. thought that it should be destroyed and now you're going all cryptic on me? You __**know**__ what I want you to tell me!"_

"_Alright," C.C. said, looking at him through the rising steam of her coffee. "But first let me ask you something else. Why?"_

_He blinked._

"_Why what?"_

"_Why do you want to know? Are you just curious? Do you want to know because of the fact that you're now a Code Holder? Or…" Her gold eyes glinted. "Are you planning to do something with the information, Lelouch?"_

"_I…" Lelouch trailed off, partly because he didn't have an immediate answer and partly because the waiter had just approached their tiny table, nestled right at the back of the café. _

_C.C. gave the waiter their order in fluent French, not hesitating or slipping up once. Her pronunciation was very good, too. He himself had a French name but could actually speak very little of the language – he couldn't follow what she was saying right now, at any rate. To be honest, C.C. just kept on surprising him. She'd been rather lazy whilst she'd been freeloading off him all those years ago, but actually she was capable of doing lots of things. She could speak several languages very well, as a matter of fact – English, Japanese, Mandarin Chinese, Russian, German, Italian and now, apparently, French. During the three years he'd had only her for a companion, he'd discovered that she was also pretty good at painting, sewing, singing and was, furthermore, rather adept at some odd form of martial art._

_Still, he supposed she'd had plenty of time to practice all of those things._

_The waiter gave a nod and went on his way with their order. C.C. looked back at Lelouch, resting her chin on her interlinked hands._

"_Well?" she asked. _

"_Because you've been hiding things from me," Lelouch finally replied in a low voice. "Things about Geass—"_

"_Well, yes, but that's always been true. Why does it suddenly matter now?"_

"_Because… because now I want you to tell me."_

"_But why?"_

"_**Because**__—" Lelouch cut himself off irritably, snatching up his teacup and taking a long sip, seething. _

"_I don't know," C.C. suddenly said, looking at the abstract little painting on the wall behind their table. "Maybe I'm just trying to spare you. You're not going to like what I'm going to tell you – and what's more, there's nothing you can do about it. This isn't something you can change with a rebellion."_

"_I am perfectly willing to admit that not everything in life can be solved with a rebellion," Lelouch replied stiffly, setting down his tea again with a hard clack. "But I am sure that __**you**__ would admit that a thing or two could have been dealt with a lot earlier if only you'd been a little more forthcoming."_

"_I would admit nothing of the sort."_

"_You knew about my mother's Geass," Lelouch hissed._

"_Of course I knew. I gave it to her."_

"_Why didn't you tell me?"_

"_You never asked."_

"_Well," Lelouch said as patiently as he could, "I'm asking now."_

"_Hn." C.C. looked back at him. "A lot of it doesn't matter anymore. You yourself are responsible for the obliteration of the Geass Order."_

"_You were the head of the Geass Order for a while, weren't you?"_

_C.C. nodded. _

"_I left after your mother's assassination. V.V. took over in my place. He conducted a lot of his research there."_

"_You see, that's something that I feel doesn't add up," Lelouch pointed out. "You said that V.V. actually wanted Geass destroyed – if that's the case, why did he dedicate his life to being a part of the Geass Order and doing research into it?"_

"_You should know your enemy, right? Besides, doesn't something about V.V.'s research and accomplishments strike you as a little odd? He was constantly turning out things that either malfunctioned or nullified the effect of Geass altogether. I might give you Rolo Haliburton as an example of the first category and Jeremiah Gottwald as an example of the second."_

"…_Haliburton?" Lelouch repeated._

"_His name before he attached himself very firmly to you. Rolo received his Geass from V.V., and I am sure that you will recall the weakness with his power."_

"_His heart," Lelouch said. "His heart… stopped every time he used his Geass."_

_C.C. nodded. _

"_Rolo was a Geass user manufactured by the Geass Order. He wasn't the only one – they took children and gave them Geass so that they could experiment on them. Rolo also wasn't the only one with a weakness. Several of the children had degenerative side-effects that surfaced from their possession of Geass. It was as though the Order had created a much weaker breed of Geass users."_

"_And you think that was V.V.'s doing?"_

"_I know it was," C.C. replied blandly. "Geass is a very powerful parasite as it is – its hold over you grows and grows until it has almost taken complete possession of you. Mao is a perfect example of that. I expect that V.V. was hoping that the effect of Geass on these weakened hosts would, in fact, kill them off."_

"_Rolo's killed him," Lelouch said quietly, looking at the tabletop. He was silent for a while. "And what… what about Jeremiah?" he asked at length._

"_That should be even more obvious. Why would V.V., a giver of Geass, go to such lengths to create a being who could reverse its effect?"_

_Lelouch looked up at her, and her cat-like amber eyes met his violet ones. Again, he didn't have an answer. Several speculations, a dozen reasons, certainly, but no actual answer._

"_Odd, isn't it?" C.C. said softly._

_Lelouch gave a thoughtful nod._

"_But V.V. made a bad choice," he said. "Jeremiah was fiercely loyal to my mother – and was therefore, by default, fiercely loyal to me. V.V. sent Jeremiah to kill me and Jeremiah simply sided with me. You'd think V.V. might have expected that from a Purist, so why choose him?"_

"_Convenience," C.C. said. "The Britannian Army wasn't about to give up any of its soldiers to the Geass Order for an experiment like that, even an Honorary Britannian one like Suzaku Kururugi. Then comes Jeremiah, dreadfully wounded, almost at death's door. If they leave him the way he is, he'll most likely die. They might as well experiment on him – they've got nothing to lose. To this day, Jeremiah Gottwald remains partially-rebuilt with machinery. He isn't really a human anymore – he's a cyborg."_

"_What difference does that make?" Lelouch asked, taking another drink of his tea._

"_All the difference in the world," C.C. responded. "Do you remember what I said earlier? Geass is a power that is human. It was created by humans; and is used by humans on other humans. V.V. devised a theory that, in order to destroy Geass completely, there would need to be something created by humans which was __**stronger**__ than Geass. It had to have a humanity about it but transcend humanity. Does that make sense?"_

"_I think…" Lelouch frowned. "C.C., do you mean something like… a __**machine**__?"_

_C.C. nodded._

"_Jeremiah Gottwald, who wields V.V.'s invention that nullified the effect of Geass, is a mechanically-enhanced human. In addition to that, he was made to be compatible with a much bigger machine – one capable of far more destruction. The Siegfried was the first machine to be created from V.V.'s research. In many respects, it was still rather crude. What he really wanted… was to create Knightmare Frames."_

"_Knightmare…" Lelouch frowned at her. "To do what?"_

_C.C. smiled wanly at him._

"_To destroy Geass, of course."

* * *

_

"I'm… not quite sure I follow," Suzaku said after a long moment of silence.

Lelouch gave a small sigh, looking away.

"It's difficult to make it any clearer," he said. "I'm not sure I know everything myself – you know what C.C. is like. She has rather a tendency to leave out a detail or two… I mean, I trust her. I know she was telling the truth. But that doesn't mean that she told me _everything_ she knows." He paused, leaning back against the piano, hands resting on the downwards slope of the keys. "She did have a conversation with V.V. about it, but I'll get to that. It's only what I can remember of what _she_ can remember, anyway. She did have that chat with him quite a long time ago…"

Suzaku nodded absently, more interested in puzzling over what Lelouch had already told him.

"So," he said slowly, "C.C. is under the impression that V.V. was actually trying to… _boycott_ Geass?"

"That's one way of putting it," Lelouch agreed. "Trying to destroy it from the inside out, I suppose – an entirely opposite approach to mine regarding the rebellion."

"And yet you both want to destroy Geass," Suzaku pointed out, folding his arms and looking at Lelouch suspiciously. "Both Code Holders, and _you_ particularly—"

"I am the first to admit that I probably couldn't have won without Geass," Lelouch snapped, heading him off. "Please understand that this is not for the sake of pride – nor revenge for the likes of Euphy and Shirley. It isn't even for some kind of personal gain such as the termination of my immortality."

"Then why do you suddenly agree with V.V.?" Suzaku asked. "After so long… _defending_ Geass—"

"It's not that I _agree_ with him, exactly," Lelouch said lightly. "I can almost certainly assure you that V.V.'s motive was different to mine."

"Lelouch," Suzaku said impatiently with a shake of his head, "this isn't making any sense. I mean, you say that after three years, suddenly out of the blue C.C. tells you about some ridiculous theory that V.V. had about destroying Geass and that she thinks he was trying to get rid of it all along – and you not only suddenly _agree_ with V.V. after you used Geass to lie and cheat your way to being ruler of the entire freaking _world_, but your agreement in fact warrants your return to Japan, where you then proceed to idiotically get yourself captured and used as a lab rat. I mean, for god's sake, you've spent the last three years of your life in _hiding_! You of all people should know that you can't just go swanning about wherever you please!"

"I didn't intend to be captured," Lelouch said tersely, "but I _did_ intend to come into contact with the Jupiter System Prototype – both it and the Mars. You will recall that I said they are Geass given a monster's form. That is true enough, but where do you suppose that Lloyd got the idea to combine the power of Geass – via a Code – and a machine in the first place?"

Suzaku blinked, thrown off-guard for a moment.

"V.V.'s research…? But…" He frowned. "The Geass Order was destroyed. The Black Knights – led by you – launched an attack on it years ago. How could Lloyd have gotten hold of that kind of information?"

"V.V. wasn't stupid," Lelouch replied. "He knew C.C. was still out there, and that she probably wouldn't think twice about being an accessory to the destruction of the headquarters – it was, after all, C.C. who in fact _led_ me to the Geass Order's whereabouts. He kept the research for his "private project" separate from the Order's main information bank. Additionally, not all of the research was new. I expect that Lloyd told you that the "idea" for the non-sakuradite powered Mars and Jupiter Knightmare Frames came from the old research gathered when the Ganymede was first created."

"That's the one your mother piloted," Suzaku said slowly. "And… and before that… the pilot was—"

"C.C.," Lelouch finished with a nod. "C.C., who had a Code. Are you starting to see how it all fits together?"

"I…" Suzaku trailed off with a nod, but he was still thinking. "There's still something that doesn't quite add up. From what you've said, I get the impression that V.V. considered that to destroy Geass as he wanted to, he needed something with the same properties as Geass but which packed a bit more of a punch – for example, a Knightmare Frame with Geass ingrained into it, achieved using a Code."

Lelouch nodded, watching Suzaku very intently but not saying anything.

"So say it worked," Suzaku went. "Say you _somehow_ – and I have no idea how it would actually work – managed to "fight" Geass using this Knightmare and you won and destroyed Geass… Wouldn't Geass still exist? I mean, if the Knightmare itself is "Geass given a monster's form", then you haven't destroyed it—"

"The Geass – or Code – ingrained into the Jupiter System Prototype is not actually true Geass," Lelouch interrupted calmly. "It is only a _copy_ of my Code. The properties are identical, but it does not have the organic advantage that I have. If the Jupiter was to be destroyed or dismantled, the "Code" would be erased and would cease to exist. This is not true of a real Code, for if a Code Holder like myself is injured or killed, our Code revives us and restores our body to its original state." Lelouch actually smiled a little. "These are the differences that V.V. was using to his advantage. A human can heal but is more easily destroyed than a machine. A machine can inflict greater destruction but damage is permanent unless it is manually repaired. Jeremiah Gottwald was V.V.'s bridge between the two, but he isn't enough – and he never will be."

"I have one more question," Suzaku said firmly, ignoring his philosophies about Jeremiah. "_Why_? Why do you both want to destroy Geass?"

"I will answer your question," Lelouch replied quietly, "but first I have one for you, and I must have your answer before I can give you yours."

Suzaku didn't much like the sound of that; he didn't like the way Lelouch's tone suddenly lowered or the way that the older boy wouldn't look at him. It meant that Lelouch wasn't comfortable asking the question (whatever it was) and _that_ meant that Suzaku probably wasn't going to be comfortable _answering_ it (whatever it was).

Lelouch was quiet for a very long time, worrying at his bottom lip as though mulling very deeply over how best to word his request. Suzaku watched him, all at once wanting him to blurt it out and for him to never, ever ask it.

"I need your help, Suzaku," the Britannian boy said finally, his voice still low. "I… I hate to put you in this position. It's not pride – you know exactly how much I value your aid. But I just… I didn't want to drag you into this…"

"You didn't," Suzaku replied, making Lelouch look up at him. "I dragged myself into it. _I'm_ the one who banged Lloyd's door down at three in the morning to rescue you, remember?"

"But that was that," Lelouch sighed, "and this is this. I've done enough to you. You can't even be Suzaku Kururugi anymore thanks to me. But I… as usual, you're the only one I can turn to. I can't do this by myself. If I'm going to destroy Geass once and for all, I need your help."

"…That's all?" Suzaku almost laughed. "Lelouch, you didn't _need_ to ask." He came closer to the piano and gathered Lelouch into his arms, holding him close. "Of course I'll help you."

For a long moment, Lelouch was rather unresponsive to Suzaku's embrace, limp against his chest. Then he took a deep breath and pressed himself into the Japanese boy's arms, his arms looping around his broad back.

"That's not what I wanted to ask you," he sighed, burying his face in Suzaku's shoulder.

Suzaku went very still himself for a moment.

"Then… that's two questions," he said weakly.

Lelouch shook his head.

"I never asked you for your help," he muttered. "I said that I _needed_ it. Declarative, not interrogative."

"Then… then what…?" Suzaku didn't finish. He didn't think he wanted to hear the rest coming from either his own mouth or Lelouch's.

Lelouch didn't say anything. Suzaku felt him take another two or three deep inhalations, as though he was _about_ to speak, but he said nothing at all.

"Lelouch…?"

"Oh, I can't!" Lelouch suddenly snapped, wrenching himself out of Suzaku's grasp. He stepped backwards and plonked himself down moodily on the piano stool, leaning forwards and burying his face in his hands. "I just can't ask you."

"Why not?" Suzaku questioned, stepping towards him. "I'm only either going to say yes or no."

"Because you'll hate me for it," Lelouch muttered. "No matter your answer, you'll resent me for asking. Just… just forget I said it…"

"But you said that you needed my help," Suzaku said irritably.

"I said _forget_ it!" Lelouch bit out, not lifting his head.

"Lelouch," Suzaku sighed, sinking to one knee before the rotting piano stool as though it was instead a throne, "it's okay. I'd do _anything_ for you. You know that."

"This is different," Lelouch murmured, but he raised his head nonetheless, meeting Suzaku's gaze. "This isn't _anything_. This is _something_."

"But I'm your knight," Suzaku said quietly. "It's okay. You can ask."

He reached for Lelouch's left hand and took it, gently kissing his fingers. Lelouch appeared unmoved, his face utterly expressionless; so Suzaku leaned up towards him, intending to kiss him on the mouth. He got within a few centimetres when Lelouch suddenly put a hand to his chest and stopped him.

"Will you make a contract with me, Suzaku?" Lelouch whispered, his mouth so close to Suzaku's that the Japanese boy could almost feel the movement of his lips. "Will you take Geass?"

* * *

_C.C. was not one for locking her door. The only visitor she ever usually had was Marianne and she didn't like to make her knock. It wasn't really due to respect – even if Marianne was one of the emperor's wives – but maybe something more like… _

…_trust._

_Marianne was probably about the closest thing to a real friend that C.C. had ever had._

_However, her "visitor" this time was not Marianne. C.C. glanced up lazily from her book and took note of the cascade of white-blonde hair and dull, lazy smile._

"_V.V.," she greeted the other Immortal curtly, glancing back down at her book. She was sprawled on her stomach on her bed and had no intention of moving. _

"_You must find this strange, C.C.?" _

_V.V. voiced it like a question, but she could tell that he didn't much care for the answer, watching him out of the corner of her eye as he wandered a little way into the room and looked around, tilting his head this way and that. He behaved very much like a child despite having the mind of an adult. Of course, he hadn't her wisdom, but he was intelligent._

_Far more than he pretended to be, at times._

"_Don't you?" V.V. went on abruptly, looking at her. "I never come to your room like this. I would not say that you and I are friends. You are, for one thing, much too fond of that common whore Charles prizes above all of his other wives."_

"_Does blood matter so much to you, V.V.?" C.C, asked blandly, turning the page. "He has many wives and mistresses. He is bound to have a favourite. Why not Marianne?"_

_V.V. was quiet for a while, rocking his weight back and forwards ever so slightly. C.C. ignored him._

"_She's pregnant," he said suddenly. _

"_Marianne? I know." C.C. glanced up at him again, watching his expression. _

_His jaw was set, his eyes very cold, and on the face of a child it made him look rather sulky as opposed to angry._

"_Their first," he murmured. "I wonder – niece or nephew?"_

"_Do you care?"_

"_No. Prince or princess, it doesn't matter. No matter how many children she has, they won't be the same as the others. They'll all have her blood. Her filthy, filthy blood. How tragic, to be born to a whore." V.V.'s violet eyes glittered. "Well, C.C.? Aren't you going to defend her?"_

_C.C. said nothing._

"_Maybe I'll kill it," V.V. went on. He gave a silvery little laugh. "Charles should. It'll bring him nothing but misery. It'll be ungrateful and reject his love. Can't you just see it? It'll love Marianne too much and Charles not at all. It'll love all the people it shouldn't—"_

"_I doubt very much that you came in here to discuss that with me," C.C. suddenly said coldly, looking at V.V. properly for the first time. "What do you want?"_

_V.V. grinned._

"_They used to call you the Grey Witch, isn't that right?" he chirped. "Why is that, C.C.? Tell me. Tell me about Geass."_

_She blinked at him; and then frowned._

"_As head of the Geass Order, I am not obliged to answer any question like that," she said tartly. "You are my subordinate, V.V., and you will respect that whether you like it or not."_

"_This isn't about research," V.V. said. "Well, not really. You see, I discovered something interesting about Geass, about its origins. Of course, both you and I know something that Charles and Marianne do not – isn't that right?"_

_C.C. didn't speak, but she was giving V.V. every ounce of her attention now. _

"_Years ago, Charles and I made a pact that we would create a world where no-one could lie," V.V. went on. "Lies are what make this world such a dreadful place to live. That is what causes pain. We decided that we would facilitate my Code and begin work on what Charles decided to call the Ragnarok Connection. We soon realised that one Code would not be enough. How lucky that you came along, C.C., as a test pilot for the Ganymede prototype. And how __**un**__lucky that you pulled out of the experiment, opening up the position for the wonderful Marianne the Flash. But not to get onto the topic of that bitch, why did you pull out, C.C.?"_

_Again, C.C. gave no answer, but V.V. merely smiled._

"_I know precisely why," he said, "and I thank you for what I learned from your brief time as pilot. It seems that a Code Holder interfacing that closely with such sensitive machinery causes the Code to start being copied into the machine's system – something of a ghostlike imprint, right? Of course, the likes of Professor Ashford and Dr Einstein couldn't have known that the irregularities in the Ganymede were caused by Geass, for they didn't know its properties. But __**I**__ do."_

"_What difference does that make?" C.C. asked in a hard voice. "I pulled out simply because it was dangerous. If that machine had copied enough of my Code, it could have—"_

"_Taken on a form of intelligent life," V.V. finished. "That is, it would have been Geass personified. When a human accepts Geass, their will and consciousness suppress it. The more they use it, the stronger the Geass becomes. Eventually they are unable to control it. Geass takes up more and more of them – often Geass-users are rendered completely insane by it. But put Geass into a machine with no will of its own and you have given the power a body which is controlled by nothing other than itself." _

_C.C. had sat up at this point; she raised her chin a little, looking at V.V. icily. He didn't seem much perturbed, going to the windowed door leading onto the balcony and looking out._

"_You see, that is something that we both know," he said lazily. "Geass has something of a mind of its own. It was created by humans, and so there is an imprint of humanity upon it. That cannot be avoided, nor erased. Geass could not have existed without humans. Humans could exist with Geass, but it was not to be so. Several hundred years before even __**your**__ birth, C.C., humans created Geass. Some might call it a god due to the fact that humans are prone to creating gods, but I… I don't agree. It's much too human for that. Ironically, I believe that it is more likely that Geass… is a physical manifestation of the lies Charles and I wish to erase." He looked at C.C. over his shoulder. "Would you agree with that, C.C.?"_

_She looked at him for a while, then dropped her gaze. This conversation was making her surprisingly uncomfortable._

"_You might argue that Geass is simply about humans controlling one another," V.V. said softly, apparently not too bothered by the fact that she was barely answering him. "However, it creates more than simply a sphere within which one person may control another. To get technical, you might refer to Geass as a tool to alter reality – when you use it, you are making a change that would otherwise never have happened. Therefore the factor that you have altered becomes a lie that exists in the fabric of reality. Charles and I agreed that we would destroy lies once and for all by merging all of humanity's consciousness into a single plane of perception using the Ragnarok Connection. But two things about that are ironic, C.C.; the first I have previously mentioned. We intend to use Geass – or, rather, its "concentrated" form, a Code – to get rid of lies when it is a tangible lie itself. Secondly…"_

_He turned back to her; she had raised her head once more, her catlike eyes locked with his icy purple ones._

"_You do know," he whispered delightedly. "I know you do. The idiots in the Geass Order have no idea, but they could not know Geass as we could, hn, C.C.? You and I, who have possessed and been possessed by Geass, given it almost all of ourselves, and then accepted the immortality that the version of it known as a 'Code' brings—"_

"_I did not accept my Code," C.C. snapped._

"_Ah, forgive me," V.V. said, but his eyes were gleaming. "That was a slip of the tongue. Geass isn't all about acceptance – far from it. The nature of it is to bend others to your will, to alter reality to suit you – that property is created by the human influence upon it. However, it goes both ways; full-circle, even. Geass has both the wish and will to alter the reality of humans. It is an imprint that exists within Geass left over from its creation – from the __**reason**__ for its creation, you might say. The Ragnarok Connection, the wish of a few humans, is mirrored by the all-too-human desire of Geass itself. Just as we wish to merge humanity, so does Geass." He smiled. "But you knew that."_

"_I did," C.C. said levelly, "but there's something that doesn't make sense in principle. If you consider Geass itself to be a lie, why use it to destroy lies? Doesn't that undermine the foundation of the world that you're trying to build?"_

_The smile snapped off V.V.'s face._

"_That is what I said was ironic," he said coolly. "It is true that Geass creates as many flaws as it fixes. Humans created it because the world was not perfect, because they wanted to pursue happiness, but the changes to reality made by the existence of Geass did not make the world any better. The best way to achieve a world that is perfectly engineered for the happiness of all humans is to get rid of individuality, to get rid of the need to put up barriers between each other. If the original desire was for Geass to make a better world, then it is only natural that the end result of Geass would be one that makes the world better – but instead it is __**Geass'**__ idea of a better world. The Ragnarok Connection will give Charles and I the power to initiate the merging whenever we wish, but it must be said that Geass will eventually merge human consciousness on its own."_

"_That does not answer my question," C.C. said flatly._

"_I know," V.V. replied with a small sigh. "But what I was trying to say is that if Charles and I do not carry out the Ragnarok Connection, Geass will initiate its own version of it sooner or later. Geass may be a lie itself, but the fact is that if I wanted to avoid being contradicted, I would have to destroy Geass completely. …Of course, that would mean that we could not carry out the Ragnarok Connection. Geass – to use it to achieve the instrumentality of human perception – is the lesser of two evils, even if its properties undermine the basis of our reasoning for wanting to merge humanity in the first place."_

"_Then what will you do, V.V.?" C.C. asked softly. "Can you stomach being contradicted?"_

"_I would have been more likely to accept it," V.V. replied icily, "if only you and Charles had not brought that whore into it."_

"_I do not understand your jealousy of Marianne. She agrees with the plan."_

"_But she is unneeded. She is nothing but an extra component. If she died tomorrow, it would not make the slightest bit of difference." _

_V.V.'s eyes gleamed with malice as he spoke of Marianne. Just as C.C. had never failed to notice that V.V. tended to adopt the mannerisms of the age he looked rather than the age he actually was, it was painfully obvious to her that he allowed himself to be consumed by the dizzying spite of an envious child. He clearly found it very difficult to accept that Charles had other things that interested him aside from V.V. himself._

_Of course, it was true that Marianne was different to all of Charles' other mistresses and wives. She came from a different background, was far more capable than the pampered princesses, duchesses and daughters of prestigious families which made up the rest of the emperor's collection of child-bearing consorts, and she was strong and intelligent._

_It was apparently as clear to V.V. as it was to C.C. that Marianne was perhaps the first and only woman that Charles had ever truly loved._

_V.V. had begun to drift towards the door again, seemingly bored of C.C.'s company. _

"_Hey," he said, reaching for the handle, "why did they call you the Grey Witch?"_

"_As I said, I am not obliged to answer your questions," C.C. replied coldly. _

_V.V. only smiled._

"_I'm sure I can work it out for myself," he replied. "It is also the nature of humans to look for something to blame. They might call it Geass, witchcraft or even society—"_

"_Just as you and Charles blame lies?" _

_V.V. tilted his head._

"_When you put it that way, it makes us sound like hypocrites," he said, but the smile didn't waver. "It seems that I will be contradicted whatever I do. But tell me, C.C. – if I was to take action to avoid being contradicted, which do you think would be the easier option?"_

_She held his gaze, but again had lapsed into silence._

"_Destroying Geass," V.V. murmured, "or destroying Marianne?"

* * *

_

"Geass."

Lelouch's words had successfully aborted the action on Suzaku's part, for the Japanese boy stilled completely, only able to get that single word out of his mouth.

Lelouch looked away.

"I _did_ say, didn't I?" he muttered darkly. "I did say that you wouldn't be happy…"

Suzaku found himself clenching his fists. How _dare_ he—

He took a deep breath and unfurled his fingers again. There was no point in flying off the handle about it. After all, it wasn't that Lelouch was insensitive to Suzaku's feelings about the whole Geass thing – quite the opposite, in fact. The way he was avoiding Suzaku's gaze right now was proof enough that he was unhappy that he'd had to ask.

_Had_ to ask. That was the thing. That notion alone was what Suzaku from immediately snapping "No" and ending the topic there and then. Lelouch was much too careful to go around giving out Geass to whoever he came upon – he wasn't like C.C., he wasn't desperate to find someone, _anyone_, capable of taking his Code.

So it couldn't be that. And if Lelouch _didn't_ want to push his Code on to Suzaku, then there had to be another reason for his asking.

"Why?" Suzaku asked frostily, rising again to his full height.

Lelouch turned his head towards him again, looking up.

"I already—" he began impatiently.

"You said you didn't want to drag me into this," Suzaku snapped, cutting him off. "I say that it's a little too late for that, but at least have the decency to let me know what it is that I'm getting dragged into, Lelouch, for god's sake."

Lelouch looked a little bit uncomfortable.

"It's… difficult to put it into words," he said, looking at the floor.

"Well, try."

Lelouch glanced up at him again, a sharp gleam in his eyes; it was an imprint of his royal blood, the last few shards of Britannia's eleventh prince left rattling around in the immortal shell that he was now. His expression was a clear demand of "Who the hell do you think you're speaking to?".

Suzaku met his gaze, and, after a long moment, Lelouch suddenly smiled faintly.

"You really are very like C.C., Suzaku," he said, seeming defeated. "Neither of you let me get away with anything. Fine, we'll do it your way. You might not like what I'm going to say, however."

"I was getting that vibe," Suzaku replied flatly.

He watched Lelouch twist his long fingers together for an extensive moment, as though debating where to begin, and suddenly felt very much like he needed to sit down. He sank onto the piano stool too, back-to-back with Lelouch, hoping that the rotting piece of furniture would take their combined weight. He could feel it beginning to sag a little but it held together for the time being. Lelouch leaned back against him and gave a deep sigh.

"You recall the Ragnarok Connection?" he asked quietly. "That ridiculous plan that my parents had to merge all of human consciousness together in order to erase lies?"

"How could I forget?"

"C.C., you and I rejected it – and, with us, mobilised by my Geass, so did the rest of humanity. With my father gone… well, we had other things to contend with. I admit that I never really gave very much thought to what my parents had tried to do, nor where they might have even gotten such an idiotic idea from in the first place. I considered them and their ideas to be something of the past, something which did not concern us. Suzaku, you and I chose a world that moved forwards no matter what, because in the World of C we agreed that that was the kind of world that best reflected humanity and its desires. It was upon that principle that we created the Zero Requiem. However…"

Lelouch paused. Suzaku felt him shift a little and reached back for his hand, closing his own around it on top of the mouldy, balding velvet seat cover. Lelouch moved his fingers against Suzaku's palm, hooking their little fingers together.

"As I said," he went on, "I did not consider exactly where my parents might have procured such a bizarre idea in the first place. As it turns out, though I cannot blame V.V. for the phenomena to begin with – since he was, by and large, simply another Code Holder – it was presumably V.V. who gave my father the idea to merge humanity's consciousness. I suppose, when you think about it, it _is_ a rather strange conclusion to jump to – that you might use Geass and a Code, which contain different arrangement orders of what are fundamentally the same components, to power a system to assimilate all of human thought and emotion into a single stream. My father could not have come up with that idea on his own, for the there is no basis for it that exists in reality. To those who know nothing of Geass, it would be dismissed as a mere fantasy, a dream made of fairy dust. It is therefore logical that there was an exterior basis to his theory."

"You mean the truth," Suzaku said softly.

"Exactly. C.C. has confirmed it. She told me about a conversation that she had with V.V. many years ago – it was before either you or I were born. V.V. admitted to knowing that it was, in fact, the desire of Geass itself to merge humanity into a single entity. That is, the Ragnarok Connection was never truly my father's idea, nor my mother's, nor even V.V.'s. They simply copied it and attempted to twist it to their own desires. It is entirely fitting that they were destroyed by Geass."

Suzaku was silent, thinking very hard about what Lelouch had just said. Somehow he wasn't as surprised as he probably should have been regarding the revelation that Geass itself apparently called dibs on the whole enforced-instrumentality-of-human-consciousness thing. After all, he'd never considered it a benign force. He'd never been as ready to excuse and forgive it as Lelouch had.

"Fitting that they were…" Suzaku paused. "Lelouch… you're implying that Geass… actually has a mind of its own – that it's almost _human_."

"Not human in the physical sense like you and I, but human, certainly. It was, after all, created by humans for use by humans, with the purpose of bettering the world for human life. It has an imprint of humanity upon it. In that sense, I guess you could say it's something a little like…"

"_Wishes_," Suzaku finished in a hushed voice. "Geass is like wishes. Those were your… exact words, Lelouch."

"Yes. However… no matter the intention behind the design of Geass, whether it was good or bad, we cannot allow it to exist for much longer. …That is, unless we want the defeat of my parents to have been in vain. I don't know when, but the merging _is_ going to happen, Suzaku. Who knows? It might happen a hundred years from now, but the thing is… _I'm_ the only one who can break the wall of protective codes to get through the Gate to the heart of Geass. There has never been one like me, and there may never be another."

Suzaku looked over his shoulder at Lelouch, puzzled, but the immortal boy had his head dipped and didn't meet his gaze.

"What makes _you_ the golden boy all over again?" Suzaku asked flatly.

"A normal human could do nothing against Geass," Lelouch said. "Neither could anyone with either a Code or Geass. Call it a protective measure – Geass' insurance against destruction. Either a regular human or someone with Geass could be controlled and a Code Holder – someone _immune_ to Geass – could have the components of their Code scrambled, causing immense pain. The only way to break down the barrier is to, in effect, cheat the system. It should be impossible for anyone to have both a Code and Geass at the same time, since taking on a Code nullifies the effect of Geass – to possess both would be to achieve 'Code Geass'. If someone with both came upon the barrier, they could overwhelm it and destroy it. It is not impossible to achieve, but there has never been anyone who—"

"Except _you_!" Suzaku interrupted; he couldn't help turning on the stool towards Lelouch as he said it. "You _must_ have had both at the same time! You said you took your father's Code in the World of C, but I _saw_ you using your Geass after that. You used it on both Nunnally and Schneizel, to start with."

Lelouch turned towards him and gave a slow nod.

"Yes, I achieved Code Geass," he said quietly. "That's why I can break down the barrier and get through the Gate. The data of Code Geass has been imprinted onto V.V.'s Code."

"Imprinted…?" Suzaku blinked at him. "You mean… you don't have Code Geass anymore?"

Lelouch shook his head, but he was smiling now.

"You see, there's a glitch in the system," he said. "Once your Geass has evolved to its highest point, you are compatible with the Code which your Geass came from and you can take it. The Code cancels out the Geass, replacing it. That's because they have the same components but in different orders. However… when your Geass has evolved to its highest point, it's _also_ compatible with _other_ Codes. If you take a Code different to the one that created your Geass, the components differ, so it doesn't cancel out your Geass. During my time as Emperor, I had V.V.'s Code and a Geass from C.C.'s Code."

"But once you took C.C.'s Code…" Suzaku said, trailing off.

"My Geass was cancelled out by it," Lelouch finished, but he was still grinning. "However, when I said that we were going to cheat the system, I truly _meant_ that we were going to cheat the system. If I was to enter the barrier with someone who possessed Geass, that information would be incorporated as part of the Code Geass data that I still hold. After all, Geass might have a human wish, but it does not possess human intelligence – at least, nothing like ours. There is no way that it could differentiate between two individuals, one with a Code and one with Geass, or simply one person possessing both. As long as the Code Geass data remains intact as a fail-safe "key", the barrier can be easily destroyed and the Gate opened."

Suzaku blinked at him. Of course. Lelouch was thinking in purely strategic terms, as always.

"That isn't all," Lelouch went on, not giving Suzaku a chance to speak. "I mean, that's not all there is to it. Breaking the barrier to get in is only the first step. As I said before, V.V. considered that to destroy Geass, it would need to be fought with something just as man-made but which was that little bit more powerful. The obvious choice was to turn to man's modern magic – that of science. You could consider that the Ganymede, the Siegfried and Jeremiah Gottwald were all prototypes. Lloyd Asplund unwittingly created the _perfect_ machine needed to fight Geass itself when he experimented on the Jupiter System Prototype and my Code. However, just as I cannot trick the barrier into believing that I still possess Code Geass by myself, I also cannot fight. Honestly… I'm just not a good enough Knightmare pilot. Not like you, Suzaku."

"But you said that you didn't want to drag _me_ into this," Suzaku said in a low voice. "So tell me, exactly who _were_ you planning to drag in? Who were you planning to have pilot the Jupiter? _Kallen_?"

Lelouch shook his head.

"Cornelia," he replied quietly. "She's a very good pilot, and I thought… that she'd take the opportunity to destroy Geass after… well, what happened with Euphy. You and Kallen, well… I didn't want to ask you to—"

"So, wait…" Suzaku paused, quickly piecing two and two together. "_You_… summoned Cornelia to Kaminejima with this proposal…?"

Lelouch nodded.

"But she wouldn't listen to me," he sighed. "She just shot me, and by the time I'd revived, she'd tied me up. I don't think she even believed a word I was saying. I was handed over to Lloyd Asplund and I haven't seen Cornelia since." He shrugged. "Not that I'd have remembered her. I _did_ seal my memories inside my Code once I was put into Lloyd's custody." He tilted his head a little to the side. "Then you came to rescue me and here we are. You and me against the world all over again, Suzaku."

"Mm." Suzaku wanted to smile himself but couldn't quite bring himself to. "You're very good at making an enemy of yourself to the world when what you're actually trying to do is _save_ it."

"I'm very good at doing it to _you_, too," Lelouch replied morosely. He leaned forwards and rested his head against Suzaku's collarbone. "I'm sorry. Everything was fine for you until I came back."

"Fine. Yeah." Suzaku wrapped his arms around Lelouch's slender frame, letting his own cheek come to rest on the top of the Britannian boy's skull. "Everything's always fine with me, isn't it?"

Lelouch gave something of an impatient little sigh, but he nuzzled closer against Suzaku nonetheless.

"Are you happy, Suzaku?" he asked. "In the new world we created, I mean."

Suzaku shrugged.

"What does it matter?" he muttered. "I gave all that up, remember? Zero has nothing, feels nothing, _is_ nothing."

"But that is only the symbolism. What about _you_? What about Suzaku Kururugi? Ah, no… I worked so hard to get Japan back, and the names—"

"_Lelouch_."

"Kururugi Suzaku?" Lelouch persisted. "What about _him_?"

"He's dead."

"Stop avoiding the question."

"What choice do I have? You won't like the answer."

"I just want the truth."

Suzaku gave a snort.

"How ironic," he said. "You've spent three years in hiding, pretending to be dead, and now that you're back, once more you're rallying for the fight to preserve lies, and yet you want the truth from _me_."

"That sounds like something my father said to me in the World of C," Lelouch said disinterestedly. "Either way, you know me, Suzaku. I bend every rule that I possibly can."

Suzaku found that he couldn't argue with that – it was as though Lelouch had been born to rebel against everything that he came across. It was that part of him that powered Black Rebellions and Zero Requiems and silly chasing-tails arguments with Suzaku over things that were meaningless.

_That_ was one of the things Suzaku had missed most. Lelouch was not gentle and placid like his sister. Beneath that cool and calm exterior there was a rather passionate personality – wilful, domineering, someone who struggled even when he couldn't win. From the very first moment that they had met, even though they gotten off on completely wrong foot – Suzaku really rather _despising_ him – he had still admired that about him. Lelouch was strong, perhaps the strongest person that he had ever met, and Suzaku had always acknowledged that; and, later, he had loved him for it.

Lelouch hadn't Euphemia's perfection. He hadn't her purity, her innocence, and he could probably never completely _understand_ it, either. But he had been able to do what she couldn't.

He had changed the world. He had saved Suzaku.

(And now sought to damn him all over again.)

"If you want the truth," Suzaku said levelly, "then I'm not happy. I'm not happy without you."

"But you weren't happy _with_ me, either," Lelouch sighed. "I don't mean our relationship. I mean the way the world was. Let's face it – I made you angry, upset and conflicted. At times you hated me and I don't blame you for it. I know that we were very happy at times as well, but that does not mean that the pain never existed."

"I know that, but that's all in the past. It doesn't make it okay, but… we chose to accept the continuing passage of time, and therefore we must accept that time makes history of things. Lelouch, you murdered Euphy. The fact that it was years ago doesn't mean that it's okay that you did it – but it _was_ years ago. If I was to still hate you for it, then that would contradict what I chose in the World of C, and I'm sick to death of being a hypocrite."

"You could have just said "Because I love you" and been done with it," Lelouch said blandly. "Either way, I will take your decidedly-more-intricate answer as your agreement that to allow Geass to merge all of human consciousness exactly as my parents tried to do is unacceptable." The violet-eyed boy finally raised his head, meeting Suzaku's gaze. "You spoke of history. History is a long sequence of bloody events: Wars and murders and executions. It is a story of human suffering, and so Geass – a human wish to end all suffering – would wipe it out. As before, that is something that I reject with all of my heart. No matter the pain, the suffering, or even the lies, human experience is governed by individuality. Part of the experience of Kururugi Suzaku is, if I may, that he has both hated and loved a boy called Lelouch Vi Britannia. _That_ is the kind of history that is at stake here."

"_Our_ history," Suzaku said softly.

"Ours, and everyone else's. History is a part of reality – it exists because things have happened during the length of human experience as we know it. Geass is, if nothing else, a tool to alter reality. To be honest, it is fair to say that, since Geass was created as a wish to better humanity, then for it to act in a way that prevents further suffering and even erases the fact that pain ever existed, it is only acting within its nature. That is, it is doing exactly what those humans centuries and centuries ago _wanted_ it to do."

"But you disagree."

"Of course," Lelouch said, "and I know that you do too. We fought – you and I together, Suzaku – to change the world for the better in a different way; a way that not only gave people like the Elevens back their identities as Japanese, but allowed them to _keep_ them. In the end, it was only you and I that disappeared, assimilated into history. You the son of Japan's last prime minister before the war broke out, the one they called the Traitor Knight; and I the banished prince of the empire, Zero and then Demon Emperor. But that's alright – because as long as that history exists, so do we."

Suzaku nodded distractedly.

"And your way of countering the very instinct of Geass… is to destroy it," he said slowly.

"There is no other way."

"And so…" Suzaku took a breath. "You need _me_… to make a contract with you and… and accept Geass."

"Suzaku, you know that I would never ask you if I had any other choice," Lelouch said desperately. "But you're the only one I can turn to. C.C. cannot take Geass again after having both it and a Code at different points. Cornelia wouldn't listen to me. Nunnally was under our father's Geass for years. You are the only—"

"What about Kallen?" Suzaku interrupted in a low voice.

"No," Lelouch said, shaking his head. "I need Kallen for something else, as much as I wish I didn't have to pull her into this after everything I did."

"Like what?" Suzaku barbed.

"Like getting the Jupiter, which hacks you due to the continuing influence Geass over you, to Kaminejima."

"Kaminejima?"

"That's where the Gate is." Lelouch sighed. "Once we're past the barrier, you will be able to pilot the Jupiter to fight Geass, but until then, neither of us can manoeuvre it that far. I am in much the same situation as you – the imprint of my Code interfaces with my real one, rendering me unable to pilot. In order to get the Jupiter to Kaminejima, we need a good Knightmare pilot who has neither Geass nor a Code, nor who has ever been under any extensive influence of the former. Kallen fits that description perfectly."

Suzaku blinked.

"Didn't… didn't you ever use Geass on Kallen?" he asked.

"I did, but it was only to ask her a question. She was under its influence for less than a minute, and it was not a recurrent command like yours. The Jupiter will not affect her."

Suzaku was very quiet, not answering. Lelouch pulled away from him completely, leaning back to give him some space; Suzaku didn't look at him, instead dropping his gaze to his lap. It wasn't an easy decision. He truly loathed Geass – perhaps he was simply biased because of Euphy, because although he knew that Lelouch could never have succeeded with his plan all those year ago _without_ Geass, Suzaku himself had never been able to accept Geass as a force of good. Weren't Euphy and Shirley proof enough of how destructive it was?

But, as usual, Lelouch had cornered him. It really did appear that the Britannian boy had no-one else that he could ask for help, and, truthfully… his dislike of Geass aside, Suzaku was a pretty perfect candidate. He fit Lelouch's requirements probably _better_ than even Cornelia did. And, on the topic of Cornelia, it wasn't as though Lelouch had come running straight to Suzaku – he had gone to Cornelia first, trying his very best to keep Suzaku out of it. Suzaku was, by and large, alone responsible for the situation he now found himself in – he had gone to rescue Lelouch of his own volition.

It was just that, typically, things that involved Lelouch were never quite what they seemed.

…That in mind, Suzaku knew that he couldn't rule out the possibility that Lelouch was lying. It was, after all, something that he was very good at. However, he didn't see how Lelouch would benefit from making up a story so elaborate; and, that aside, would he have really risked capture – and _endured_ capture – for something that wasn't true?

But what about C.C.? Had _she_ really been telling the truth? Why now, after all this time? It didn't seem like the kind of thing that C.C. would do – send Lelouch on a wild goose chase – but Suzaku couldn't be positive. Maybe she'd just wanted to get rid of him for a while.

"Lelouch," Suzaku said at length, still not looking at him, "do you truly believe C.C.? I mean… do you honestly think that all this stuff about Geass… well, is _real_?"

"I know it is," Lelouch replied levelly, making Suzaku look up sharply.

"How?"

"I've seen the Gate."

Suzaku looked away again, saying nothing.

"You don't believe me, do you?" Lelouch sighed. "Suzaku, I understand that it's… no doubt _difficult_ for you to believe whatever I say, given my rather impressive track record of misleading you, but I—"

"You have only yourself to blame," Suzaku cut in woodenly.

"I know that. I wish I hadn't spoiled the kind of trust that we used to have, but the damage is done. But Suzaku… this isn't about just you and me. If we don't do something—"

"I _know_!" Suzaku snapped irritably, abruptly standing. "But this isn't easy for me, Lelouch. You know what I think of Geass."

"Geass is the enemy," Lelouch replied. "That's what we are fighting against – but if we're going to win, I need you to take it first. If I still had Code Geass, that would be different, but unfortunately that's not the case. When Geass is destroyed, your particular Geass will simply disappear. It will be as though you never had it."

"You're missing the point—" Suzaku began snappily.

"Suzaku, I thought you had changed," Lelouch interrupted coldly. "When you joined me to assist with the Zero Requiem, you did so on the principle that the means did not matter – only the end result did. That is to say, it took you a long time to reach that conclusion, but when you finally did, we were able to progress. Please don't tell me that you've reverted back to your original naïve way of thinking so quickly—"

"Don't use my words against me," Suzaku bit out. "I _won't_ be manipulated into this by you, Lelouch."

"I'm not trying to manipulate you," Lelouch replied, standing himself. "I'm _asking_ you, because you're the only person I can ask. As my knight, as my best friend… Suzaku, help me. _Please_."

Suzaku looked at him. Usually Lelouch had a whole speech – a carefully-worded rallying of morale – but now he was simply gazing at Suzaku beseechingly, completely silent. He didn't seem to have anything else to say, nothing to add, no killer way to seal the deal and get Suzaku to sign over his soul.

"If we _were_ to destroy Geass," Suzaku said at length, choosing his words very carefully, "you… would lose your Code, right? I mean… you wouldn't be immortal anymore?"

"That is correct. I would begin to age again."

"Is that what you want?"

"This isn't about what _I_ want, Suzaku."

"But _is_ it?" Suzaku insisted. "You… worked so hard to make yourself something other than human – first the Man of Miracles, and then the Demon Emperor… Do you really want to be shot down so soon after building those wings?"

"The wings I built out of bones?" Lelouch smirked. "Why do you even care about that? You agreed with very little of what I did."

"But I was there to see you fall," Suzaku said quietly.

"That's because I fell right into your arms, idiot," Lelouch replied dryly.

"So now you think I'm obliged to lift you?"

"Not _obliged_." Lelouch took a few light little steps and closed the gap between them, looking up at Suzaku, his big eyes unblinking. "I already said that this wasn't a manipulative measure, or an order, or…"

Lelouch trailed off, but he'd begun to walk his fingers up Suzaku's arms – perhaps he'd meant it as a seductive little action, but his thin, crawling fingers made Suzaku think of skeletal spiders and he shuddered, batting Lelouch away. Lelouch recoiled, looking both shocked and kind of offended.

"Suzaku, I don't know what else to say," he huffed finally. "Believe me, I wouldn't have asked if I had any other choice, but here we are, as always – with just each other. What do you want me to do, get down on my knees?"

"I wish that you hadn't asked," Suzaku spat.

"And I wish that I hadn't had to, but it's _this_ or—"

"Do you actually know _how_ to not meddle in things, Lelouch?" Suzaku interrupted.

"Fine words coming from _you_," Lelouch threw back at him. "I'm grateful for your rescue, but I honestly get the impression that you didn't give it very much thought before barging into Lloyd's lab at three-thirty in the morning to demand me back. For heaven's sake, you didn't even come as _Zero_!"

"That's because it didn't have anything to _do_ with Zero," Suzaku said in a low voice, clenching his fists.

"Didn't it?" Lelouch arched an eyebrow. "So who am I?"

Suzaku had at least a dozen names for him flitting through his skull at this exact moment, but he bit at his bottom lip and said nothing. He met Lelouch's gaze icily for a long moment.

Lelouch finally smiled that sour smile of his and shook his head.

"Fine," he said. "If you won't help me, that's alright. I suppose I don't have the right to ask you for anything anyway, do I?"

"Lelouch—"

"It's alright, Suzaku. I'll find someone else. Rescuing me has already put me in your debt, after all. Just forget I ever asked you for anything else." Lelouch lowered himself into a regal little bow – and if it was sarcastic, it still did not deplete from its grace. "Thankyou for everything, but I can't stay with you any longer. I have to go. I hope you understand."

He straightened again, gave Suzaku a little nod and turned on his heel, walking away across the tiny, dark little back-room, chains trailing behind him like the Ghost of Christmas Past or something just as ominous.

For what seemed like a very long second, Suzaku couldn't say anything. He couldn't move. All he could do was stand there, frozen – _jammed_ – as Lelouch drifted further and further out of his reach.

His common sense told him to just let Lelouch go. After all, he _was_ trouble – every time he appeared in Suzaku's life, mayhem wasn't far behind him. He was like parasite, constantly attaching himself very firmly to Suzaku and proceeding to suck the life out of him, whether he meant to or not; some terribly destructive force to blame for almost everything bad that had ever happened to Suzaku Kururugi.

However… something else, whether it was his heart or his soul or his insanity, told him to grab Lelouch and stop him. He couldn't let him go. After three years spent being little more than a shell of his former self, depressed over the death of his best friend, he couldn't let said best friend – miraculously-revived – just walk out of here without him.

It was this latter force – whatever the hell it was – that won; something in him clicked and he came back to life, only needing a few strides to catch up with Lelouch and ensnare him. He caught the Britannian boy up in his arms with perhaps a little bit too much force, for Lelouch buckled under his strength and overbalanced them both, bringing the pair of them to the rotting, dusty floor with a painful _thud_. Lelouch twisted underneath him with a pained hiss, managing to turn himself over so that he could look up at Suzaku.

"I can't let you leave," Suzaku said breathlessly, clamping his hands around Lelouch's upper arms.

"You're going to keep me as your prisoner?" Lelouch sighed, seeming irritated rather than shocked by Suzaku's reaction.

"No, I…" Suzaku gave a sigh of his own and dipped his head. "I just… can't let you leave, Lelouch. I can't let you leave me again."

"Then bind me to you," Lelouch said softly, looking up at the ceiling. "Make a contract with me and I won't be able to leave you for as long as it exists."

"And what about after it has ceased to exist?"

"Well, then I suppose you'll just have to marry me." His violet eyes slid across to lock with Suzaku's. "Is that fair?"

"I guess." Suzaku exhaled deeply again, worrying at his bottom lip for a moment. "…Will it hurt?"

Lelouch smiled.

"You're not afraid of pain, you masochist," he said wryly. He gave a little laugh, and Suzaku caught it and had to laugh too. It was true; pain was the least of his worries.

But…

"_Alright_," he whispered defeatedly, averting his gaze from the parted hair of Lelouch's fringe. "Alright, Lelouch. I'll make a contract with you. Give me Geass."

Lelouch nodded and reached one hand up towards Suzaku's face, pulling him down closer.

"We'll do it like this," he whispered, his mouth practically flush with Suzaku's. "Oh, and by the way… you're my first."

"I'm always your first," Suzaku muttered. "And you're always mine."

"Mutual guinea-pigs," Lelouch said, and he kissed Suzaku before the Japanese boy could say anything else.

(Or change his mind.)

Even with his eyes closed, kissing Lelouch back to distract himself from what was inevitably about to happen, Suzaku was aware of the sudden red flare pressing against his eyelids; he didn't open them, not wanting to see the Geass symbol, not wanting to be reminded—

He suddenly felt himself pulled away from Lelouch, pulled away from everything that was physical; he opened his eyes almost without meaning to, seeing that the tiny, dirty room that they had been in was gone, replaced by an endless oblivion of blue, something like the sea.

He felt pared-down, as though he was being pulled apart and rebuilt, atom by atom, even as he stood there; naked, too, but not in the conventional sense. When he looked down at himself, he saw that he _was_ naked, but also simplified, strangely sexless, entirely non-physical.

This wasn't _him_. This was the shape of his consciousness.

"C.C. called it the Power of Kings when I first entered this place," he heard Lelouch say. "She said that it is a power that isolates you. She was wrong."

Suzaku turned towards Lelouch, who was in a similar state to him. Only three things truly stood out about his form – each of the Geass symbols on his body, blazing scarlet.

"Of course, I wonder if she perhaps knew that she was wrong," Lelouch went on. "After all, it is the wish of Geass to assimilate all of humanity in accordance with purpose of its creation." He held out his hand towards Suzaku. "I'm not going to seduce you with promises of power, Suzaku. We both know why we're here. If you accept the contract, then—"

Lelouch's mouth kept moving, but suddenly Suzaku could no longer hear him; Lelouch seemed to know that there was a problem, for he suddenly strained towards Suzaku even more, stretching out his long fingers as far as he could, but his form was getting warped and fuzzy, twisting the bird-like shapes of his Geass insignias, and just as Suzaku tried to reach for him, everything suddenly shuddered and went black.

For an agonisingly long moment, Suzaku could feel nothing, hear nothing, see nothing. Growing panicked, he flailed his hands out and up, desperately searching for some kind of anchor—

His fingers met with and closed around thin arms that he was familiar with. He took a deep, gasping breath and opened his eyes – he hadn't realised that they were closed, but he found himself looking up at Lelouch as his lashes lifted.

Lelouch, who was astride him. His first thought was that they were out of Geass Contract Land, but then he became aware of the fact that he and Lelouch were on the bed of the huge suite that they had shared as Emperor of the World and Knight of Zero. They were both still naked, but in a far more physical sense – at least, as far as he could tell. He was inside Lelouch, the Britannian boy straddling him, but he couldn't really _feel_ it.

Neither, apparently, could Lelouch – for his face was almost entirely expressionless.

"There's a problem," Lelouch said flatly, putting his hands on Suzaku's chest and tracing his fingers over the smooth crests of muscle.

"There… there is?" Suzaku breathed.

Lelouch gave a slow nod.

"Yes," he said calmly, trailing his fingertips lower, down towards Suzaku's navel. "_You_. You won't accept Geass."

"But I…" Suzaku pushed himself up on his elbows. "But I _said_ that I'd make a contract with you, Lelouch!"

"You obviously didn't mean it."

"I _did_!"

"Well, you're rejecting it somehow. Perhaps you're afraid."

"…Of Geass?" Suzaku asked softly.

"That, or…" Lelouch suddenly leaned back, gesturing to both sides of the bed.

Lined down them, perfectly still and silent and stoic, were people. People like Euphy. Nunnally. Cecile. Lloyd. Milly. Shirley. Rivalz. Kallen.

"Are you afraid of what they would think?" Lelouch went on. "That the great Suzaku Kururugi bowed to something he swore he would fight against – that he always maintained that he despised?"

"Sh-shut up!" Suzaku gasped, shrinking back from him as far as he could.

"Or," Lelouch went on, closing his eyes and tipping his head back, "are you afraid of becoming a part of a machine again? Ghosts can't save the world, you know."

He opened his eyes again and looked back at Suzaku.

They were green.

"Stop it!" Suzaku shrieked, thrashing beneath him, bringing up his knees and trying to throw him off – Lelouch, Lancelot, embodiment of Geass, _whatever_ the hell he was. "Shut up, _shut up!_" He closed his own eyes and clawed at his skull as he screamed it, twisting and arching as though in throes of unbearable agony. "_Leave me alone!_"

"That's what I thought," he heard, breathed in Lelouch's low, pretty voice.

And then silence. Panting, he dared to open his eyes again. Lelouch was gone. So were all of the motionless-emotionless spectators.

He wasn't naked anymore, either. Sitting up and gingerly swinging his legs off the side of the bed, he found himself in a white kimono, crisp and fresh like snow, and hakama of dark blue. He stood and something fluttered to the floor like a moth. He glanced down at it – a piece of paper. He hesitated, then bent and picked it up, unfolding it.

_Kururugi Suzaku_

_KN1 to K1_

He frowned. KN1 to…? Wasn't that… chess jargon?

He glanced around. The only way out of this vast empty room was through the door, so he started for it, the paper folded tightly inside his hand. He opened it and stepped out into what he _thought_ was the corridor—

As he stepped over the threshold, the scenery changed in a way that he really should have been used to by now. Everything was now overhung by a dull grey fog. He glanced down at the floor, blinking at the large black and white squares beneath his feet. He looked up again, his gaze darting this way and that. There was complete silence and no movement around him whatsoever, but he wasn't alone.

All around him, perfectly still and positioned carefully on several of the squares, were different versions of himself. Child. Ashford uniform. Britannian Army uniform. Pilot jumpsuit. The uniform he'd worn as Euphy's knight. Knight of Seven. Knight of Zero. Zero.

He looked down at the paper again. KN1 to K1. So… was that… knight to… king?

A glance behind him informed that the king square on his side of the giant board was empty.

_His_ side.

He looked up sharply. Across the other side of the board, positioned exactly as the mirrored versions of himself, were several variants of Lelouch. Suzaku scanned the scattered crowd in search of the one in white and gold—

He found him, but he wasn't standing in the king's position. He had been placed as a pawn.

Suzaku took a deep breath and stepped off his own square and onto the next one, keeping an eye on the versions of himself nearest him.

They didn't move. It didn't appear that he had to play his way across – which was good. He wasn't spectacular at chess. He was much too reckless.

He picked up his pace, moving quickly and confidently towards Lelouch's side. He passed the ten year old who had sworn revenge and the schoolboy who had started a revolution and the emperor who had died for it. They were all like dolls or mannequins, motionless, unseeing.

The only one moving – _smiling_ – was the one standing at K1.

The one in the black prisoner's outfit with a Geass symbol gouged onto his forehead.

"You're still here?" he asked as Suzaku stopped right before him. "I thought you would have cleared off by now, to be honest. You obviously don't want to be here."

"Checkmate," Suzaku said softly in reply.

Lelouch blinked at him.

"It would appear so," he said at length. "Or is that what you think this is? It _is_ true that I don't really have anywhere else to turn, but the same is not true for you. The contract has not been completed. You can still back out if you want."

"I didn't mean to reject it," Suzaku said, looking away. "I meant it… when I said that I would make a contract with you."

"But this must be what you _really_ want," Lelouch said.

"But it's not about what _I_ want, is it?" Suzaku looked back at him again.

"No, I suppose not."

"Just tell me one thing," Suzaku went on, "because you avoided the question before. To lose your immortality – is that what you want?"

"If it means that you won't leave me behind, then yes," Lelouch replied. "When I left with C.C., I… I originally planned to never see you again. I didn't want to. It's not that… I didn't want to see you looking old, but just that I didn't want you to have the mark of aging when I have none. One hundred years from now… I would still look like this and _you_…"

"I'd be gone," Suzaku finished.

"Yes. So I thought… it would be better if I never saw you again. If you never knew."

"But here we are." Suzaku reached out and took Lelouch's hand – and, as he touched him, his clothes changed.

Knight of Zero.

"'Til death do us part," the Japanese boy went on.

"No," Lelouch replied. "That's not true. Death has thus far failed to part us."

Suzaku smiled and went down on one knee before him, resting his forehead against the back of Lelouch's hand.

"I accept the contract," he said.

"Why?" Lelouch asked. "Why not reject it – as you seem to want to?"

Suzaku raised his head again, looking up at him. He was still smiling.

"Because I'm your knight."

* * *

Nyah ha ha, I know, I know, I leave you on the meanest cliffhangers. But hey, we have PLOT! This might be a good time to mention it (and I am sure that most of you have noticed), but the summary has changed. That's because I won't be spoiling you guys anymore! Yayz!

Whooo, it's HALLOWEEN!!1111!!1111!!!1111!!!onehundredandeleven!!1! Seriously, I have been SO excited all month! I have had so many Pumpkin Spice Lattes from Starbucks that I'm surprised my skin hasn't turned orange, and my crazy Halloween-themed shenanigans have included seeing a one-man show entitled _Poe_, going to Kings Island's 'Halloween Haunt', holding a Halloween horror-themed anime night for the anime club that I am now inexplicably the president of (original 1985 _Vampire Hunter D_ movie FTW!) and decorating our suite door with my room-mate (whose _birthday_ it is today, actually. How cool is that?! She has the same birthday as L. :P).

Everyone! Let me know what you get up to this Halloween! What costume, what candy you got, what you did!

Oh, and I'll, like, update and all that good stuff soon!

HAPPY HALLOWEEN!!111!!!111!!

With love from YaoiCon,

RobinRocks xXx

P.S: This is Halloween, this is Halloween (Halloween, _Halloween_)!


	11. On Both Your Houses

SO. Some of you may know this, but today – 5th December – is Lelouch's birthday. Funny story (well, not really) – I was torn between updating today for Lelouch's birthday or updating two days ago on the 3rd for mine. I essentially left it up to **AutumnDynasty** to make the decision, regarding when she sent me back the chapter. We'll assume she wanted the extra two days and didn't simply decide that a fictional character's birthday was more important than mine. XD.

(Not so) interestingly, I was actually _meant_ to be born on the 5th. I guess I am just too cool to share my birthday with Lelouch. (Moar liek nowhere near cool enough, kakaka...) I did get the _Roman Album: Code Geass R1_ artbook from my friend for my birthday, though, so I got to look at Lelouch in his typically-epic-and-awkward poses on my birthday.

(More) interestingly... this chapter is actually from Lelouch's perspective as opposed to Suzaku's, who is the usual lead for _The Ghost in the Machine._ With this one, given its nature, I wanted to examine Suzaku from a perspective outside his own screwed-up head (and who better to choose than Lelouch and _his_ screwed-up head?). It is likely to be the only one, since although I like writing from Lelouch's perspective, I did choose Suzaku as the lead for several reasons. So, um... enjoy!

OH. And it's also another full-chapter flashback. I am sorry to have sprung this on you after leaving you on that cliffhanger regarding the whole Suzaku-getting-Geass-oh-noes thing last time, but this wasn't out of the blue. It's strategically-placed, there were foundations I laid down back in the double-part flashback for this and I guess I just wasn't quite done with the world of _Code Geass R1_. It is one quite different from the post-_R2_ world.

Thankyou to: **FantaLain, tweekers, Eriyu, alyuchiha913, youkai-massacre, Nusku, teito13, Sae Arara, Blackrose2005, PikaNecoMico, plummy-kins, Crispy Rice, KuroitsukiNoMai, Bistre Melancholia, XXStrangestFruitXX, Piggl, Altair718, amira, Fogwood, DeathsLastPrayer, Diana Prince, 4udball, SutaakiHitori, InfinityOnTheRun, LoLaDaBlackRabbit **and **gershapurr!**

**AutumnDynasty **very kindly betaed this whilst ill. I take no responsibly if she accidentally infected it and you get sick from reading it. So there.

Credit also goes to her for the phrase "system reset". It was one of her beta comments and I liked it so much that I stole it. Oh, yeah, I _so_ went there.

(Oh. YaoiCon was a blast. More on that after.)

The Ghost in the Machine

XI – On Both Your Houses

[Or: Eleven]

He awoke at the sound of the shower.

Typical. It really didn't seem to matter whether Suzaku stayed the night or not – Lelouch woke up every morning to find himself alone. Suzaku was odd in his routine like that, probably because he was a soldier. He got up at the same time single every morning (the ungodly hour of 7am) and went to have a shower. It wasn't as though he didn't want to stay with Lelouch; he would cuddle him all night through, but once it was 7 o' clock he disentangled himself, made sure to carefully tuck Lelouch back in and went off to take his blasted barrack-shower. If they didn't have a class first thing in the morning, he would come back, his skin hot and his hair damp, clamber back into bed and pull Lelouch close again. Often it was _that_ that Lelouch awoke to – the sensation of being pressed to Suzaku's bare chest, still a little sticky from where he had only half dried himself off, all of him smelling of whatever shower gel he had pilfered from Lelouch's bathroom today.

Lelouch drowsily pushed himself up on his elbows and glanced at the clock. 7:12am. _Much_ too early. He let his face smack back into the pillow again gratefully, his eyes already closed. It was times like this he was exceedingly glad of Sayoko –although admittedly it had bred a little bit of laziness in him. Still, he most likely only had another five minutes of bliss before Suzaku came back to pester him, anyway...

He was almost asleep again when the bedroom door opened; his head darted up again in surprise. The shower was still running, so it could only be...

Speak of the devil. Sayoko's actual footsteps were completely silent on the carpet, but he knew she was there and started to sit up.

"Good morning," she greeted him, smiling as she brought the small tray she was carrying to the bedside table.

"Good morning," he replied, twisting the kinks out of his spine as he raised himself.

Still smiling idly, she averted her gaze; he'd quite forgotten that he wasn't wearing a shirt (or anything else, for that matter) and snatched the sheets back up to his waist, maybe a little higher.

"I'm sorry," he said quickly, feeling the heat rise in his face and floundering to change the topic. "Is... is Nunnally up?"

Sayoko shook her head, apparently not particularly fazed by his unintentional little display.

"Not yet," she said. "I'm going to go and wake her at seven-thirty."

"Do you want me to do it?" Lelouch looked back at her again. "If you have other things to do, I don't mind helping her to get ready."

Sayoko shook her head.

"That's alright," she replied mildly, giving him something halfway between a small bow and curtsey. "I already have breakfast started, so it's not a problem." She started away. "It's just the two of you this morning?"

"I..." He couldn't hold her gaze, not sure if she was teasing him. "N-no. Suzaku... is still here."

She nodded and left the room, quietly closing the door behind her. Lelouch exhaled deeply, then looked at the tray, having a horrible suspicion that...

Yes. There were two teacups.

He poured himself some (after putting his shirt and underwear very firmly back on) and sank against the headboard with it, enjoying its bland warmth; he watched Suzaku emerge from the bathroom through the steam rising from it, making him look as though he had been captured on an old reel of film, blurred at the edges.

"Two teacups," Suzaku observed, coming to the bedside in his boxers and open phoenix-embroidered robe, the latter of which now more-or-less lived in Lelouch's room.

"Two teacups," Lelouch agreed. "She knew you didn't leave."

"It seems like I never leave," Suzaku replied cheerfully, sitting on the edge of the bed and watching Lelouch put down his own tea so that he could pour a cup for the Japanese boy.

"I don't see why you don't just move in here properly," Lelouch said flatly, handing Suzaku his tea before retrieving his own. "You're either here or at work. You hardly ever go back to your own room these days."

"Mm, but I think it's good we have our own space," Suzaku murmured over his cup. "I say this more for your benefit than mine. I'd probably drive you mad if I lived here all the time. 'Familiarity breeds contempt' – isn't that the saying?"

"You think we'd end up hating each other?" Lelouch snorted.

"Well..." Suzaku seemed not to have an answer to that and sipped distractedly at his tea. "Not... not "hate", exactly, but... we'd probably find that there are things we do that annoy each other, or—"

"I already know what annoys me about you," Lelouch interrupted. "The way you won't stand up for yourself against people you could probably knock out with both hands tied behind your back—"

"Fighting isn't the way to resolve everything and anything, Lelouch," Suzaku said coolly, not looking at him.

"If that's what you think, then why the hell are you in the army?"

"I'm not discussing this with you."

"Alright, I'm sorry." Lelouch looked at Suzaku, who didn't return his gaze; he nudged him with his knee through the sheets. "Hey, Suzaku. I said I was sorry, okay?"

"You don't mean it," Suzaku replied stiffly, making Lelouch blink.

"Excuse me?"

"I said that you don't mean it," Suzaku replied, finally glancing at him again. "I know you. When you're _really_ sorry... for some reason, you don't apologise. But it's not even that. It's just that I know you're not sorry for saying that, and it's because I know that's how you feel. Nothing I say or do will ever make you feel any differently, but... well, that's okay. You can think what you want." Suzaku paused, and then suddenly spoke again, leaning back a little and looking thoughtfully up at the ceiling. "You want to know why I'm in the army? Here's the thing – the policy of the Britannian occupational forces, I guess. Take Area 11: When it _became_ Area 11, all of its citizens came under the rule of Britannia. It is the Britannian Army's duty to protect all Britannian subjects, be they Britannian or Numbers. We exist, truly, not to fight, but to protect. That's why I joined. I wanted to help protect."

"Taking over another country and then disguising colonial subjugation as "protection" is just—" Lelouch began indignantly.

"So I don't fight," Suzaku interrupted calmly. "I only protect."

"Then why don't you protect _yourself_?!" Lelouch snapped.

"Because they are not hurting me. But make no mistake..." The expression on Suzaku's face was suddenly odd and unreadable as he looked fully at Lelouch. "If anyone so much as _threatened_ you or Nunnally... I'd..."

Suzaku trailed off. Lelouch hadn't realised that he had stopped breathing, but he found himself exhaling deeply as he watched Suzaku reach across to the bedside and put down his cup. _That_ had been a sudden spike in temper; Suzaku's anger fascinated him because it was so rare. He had been moody and aggressive as a child – when Lelouch had first met him – it was true, but these days... well, he was always so chirpy about this, that or the other that Lelouch often forgot that he had ever _been_ a moody and aggressive brat once upon a time.

It was times like _this_ that reminded him. Lelouch, of the two of them, was the one renowned for the sharp tongue and irritable personality, but Suzaku had his moments. He could be a nasty piece of work when it pleased him.

Oh, Suzaku Kururugi had it in him to fight back, and to fight back hard, and to _win_. He just chose not to. Lelouch wondered – _often_ – how different would it all be if Suzaku was as rebellious as he, or even as Kallen. _He_ was a full-blooded Britannian royal, and Kallen was only half-Japanese. Suzaku, fully Japanese, the son of Japan's last prime minister, had so much more to rebel _for_.

How different would it all be if the only number that Suzaku Kururugi would accept was _zero_?

Still, he seemed bent on protecting only others. Suzaku loathed himself. Perhaps to those around him it wasn't obvious since he always seemed so happy, but to Lelouch, who knew him so well and so intimately, it _was_ obvious, painfully so. He let himself be attacked because he felt that he deserved it. He let people like Jason Kingsley treat him like dirt because _he_ thought that they were better than him, too. It made Lelouch resent him, in a strange way, but it was only because he utterly despaired of him; he honestly got the impression that if he, Lelouch, cheated on Suzaku with someone, _anyone_, else, the young soldier would probably just smile and nod and give them his blessing. It wasn't that he was apathetic, but simply that...

...he seemed to feel that he didn't deserve Lelouch. His love. His friendship. Even his _attention_.

Not that that meant he wouldn't protect what he _did_ have. That was ultimately what it came back to. Suzaku's temper had risen in the first place because he had wanted Lelouch to know that even if _he_ didn't mind being picked on, he wouldn't tolerate it happening to either his best friend or his best friend's little sister.

"What would you do?" Lelouch whispered, reaching across and taking Suzaku's hand, wrapping his pale, slender fingers around the Japanese boy's palm.

"Look, forget I said anything," Suzaku muttered, looking away, although he left his hand clutched in his friend's. "It... I was just saying stupid things."

"It didn't sound stupid."

"Well..." Suzaku fell headlong into his trap, turning back to him. "I just... want you to know that I'll... always protect you. I'll never let anything happen to you, Lelouch."

Lelouch put his own teacup carefully aside as he felt Suzaku lean in closer even as he spoke; tangled in the kiss before he'd even let go of the porcelain handle, hurriedly snatching his fingers away to sink them indulgently into Suzaku's damp, clean hair as he was pushed firmly against the headboard.

"Is that all?" Lelouch said lazily, winding his arms around Suzaku's neck when they finally broke apart again; he rested his forehead against the Japanese boy's and smiled in self-satisfaction. "I already knew that. You're my knight, idiot."

—

(_But you don't mean it, Suzaku – no matter how much you want to_.)

* * *

**[Two households, both alike in dignity, in fair Verona where we lay our scene; From ancient grudge break to new mutiny – where civil blood makes civil hands unclean]

* * *

**

The pool was beautiful on an afternoon like this, with the clear, cloudless sky visible through the glass roof and the sun a brilliant coin suspended halfway-west, hanging in the midst of the plain sheet of blue like a bauble. The water, bluer still with chemicals that rather depleted from its romance, glimmered and flashed like a mirror with every slight lap or ripple.

(Lelouch would have been eying it with more distaste despite how pretty it was but for the fact that today – just like last week, and the week before, and the week before that, and the week before that – he didn't have to get in it. He was on Week 5 of his six-week exemption from Physical Education following the whole falling-into-a-frozen-lake-and-almost-drowning-on-the-Geography-trip thing, and, naturally, was not so willing to rebel against Doctor's Orders as he was against the entirety of the Holy Britannian Empire.)

Since Lelouch Lamperouge was rather notorious for his own particular cocktail of physical inaptitude shaken well with what could _really_ only be classed as laziness, the gym teacher was certainly not above glaring at him from time to time as he stretched himself out on one of the loungers at the poolside – fully-dressed, of course – with homework for some other class; but as long as he had that wretched doctor's note, the teacher was powerless from grabbing his most hopeless student by the back of the neck and throwing him headlong into the pool – fully-dressed, of course.

Still, he'd probably almost-drown again and need Kururugi to fish him out and be rewarded with another Get Out Of Jail Free card for the _next_ six weeks.

Kururugi. Now _that_ was an interesting friendship – not that the gym teacher put much thought into which of his students went about with which of his other students, but it was _obvious_ how much Lamperouge and Kururugi were together, probably _because_ they had absolutely nothing in common (and because they _were_ always together).

Lamperouge was just about the worst (and most unmotivated) student that this particular gym teacher had ever had the misfortune to come across. Kururugi, conversely, not only seemed to _love_ Physical Education, he also excelled at it. A genuine trained soldier, with both the build and the battle-scars to show for it, he was easily the best in the class, acing every task or exercise or game with, apparently, very little effort.

Of course, he was also an Eleven, which meant he wouldn't be able to take his talent far, but the gym teacher was just as happy giving Kururugi Straight As for this class as he was failing Lamperouge.

Not that Lamperouge _cared_, evidently. He was far happier with his nose in a book – although, at the moment, it had to be said that he _did_ appear to be interested in the lesson. The class – all boys – had been divided into four teams of six and were racing two lengths each, the team with all six of its swimmers out of the water first declared victorious.

The team that Suzaku Kururugi was in had been strategic and put him last so that his speed could make up for any mistakes made by earlier swimmers. They had put their second-best swimmer, Matt Armstrong, up first, giving them a good start, but towards the middle it had predictably dwindled. As the last six swimmers dived in, mere seconds between them all, the boys seemed to descend into a primal frenzy, shrieking and yelling at their team-mates, jostling each other in their encouragement.

Only Lelouch Lamperouge remained absolutely still, his face expressionless, book still open on his lap but his violet eyes trained firmly on the water; no longer still and sparkly, but carved up violently by the thrash and tangle of competitive schoolboys in identical dark green uniform swimming shorts.

Close though it may have been in those opening moments, there really had been no competition. Kururugi broke the surface first and was out and being descended upon by his team-mates for several rounds of friendly punches wherever they could reach him by the time the second-placer, Jason Kingsley, had even reached the side.

The gym teacher checked his stop-watch as Kururugi straightened up and raked his sopping fringe out of his eyes. He wasn't surprised at this point by how quickly this particular student had done the lengths, but strode across to intercept the gaggle of boys seemingly hell-bent on suffocating their champion (having also acquired Rivalz Cardemonde, who had been on a different team) to congratulate the brilliant oddity who had come to the school only on the orders of a well-meaning princess.

He looked briefly at Lelouch Lamperouge, who also had his attention focused on Kururugi. Being a gym teacher, it was understandable that he had never seen any other expression on the boy's face but a scowl.

The smile startled him.

—

"Well, I suppose it _was_ too much to hope that you wouldn't show off and make all us superior Britannians look bad," Lelouch murmured gleefully, just loud enough for Suzaku to hear him as he stopped behind him.

"Don't start," Suzaku sighed, glancing over his shoulder at him as he pulled his towel out of his gym bag.

Lelouch smiled and shrugged.

"I'm just saying—"

"Well, don't."

Lelouch snorted, his smile flatlining.

"I was just congratulating you."

"In a very calculating manner."

"Naturally." Standing out in his full uniform in the middle of the changing room, Lelouch looked around idly. "Where's Rivalz?"

"Shower. That's what I'm waiting for."

"Seriously? You're the Class Swimming Champion and you have to _wait_ to shower?"

"_Lelouch_!" Suzaku snapped it with enough force to make several of the boys in the surrounding vicinity look up sharply. "Cut it _out_ before I get seriously mad."

Lelouch merely rolled his eyes and sat down on the bench next to Suzaku's schoolbag.

"Honestly, what side of the bed did _you_ get out of this morning?" he muttered.

"The side without you in," Suzaku replied curtly, leaning down next to Lelouch just long enough to say it close to his ear before sharply straightening again and walking away towards the showers without another word.

He passed Rivalz, who was coming the other way, tossing his bottle of shampoo from one hand to the other.

"Lelouch!" Rivalz said brightly. "Were you watching that last race? That Kururugi, huh? What are we going to do with him?!"

"That's a good question," Lelouch replied, smiling faintly up at Rivalz. "You weren't bad yourself, though."

Rivalz grinned and pretended to flex his muscles; Lelouch threw his towel at him, laughing despite himself. He then busied himself with sorting out the contents of his bag in a more orderly manner as Rivalz towelled himself off and put his school uniform back on.

"Suzaku's taking a while," Rivalz observed as he finished buttoning his shirt. "I guess everybody wants to shower – the chlorine in that pool is really strong..." He glanced at his watch. "Aww, dang it," he whined. "I thought it was earlier than that. I guess I won't have time to go to the vending machine before English..."

"I'll go," Lelouch said blandly, standing. "I'm bored anyway. What do you want?"

Rivalz scrabbled in his bag for his wallet, grinning as though he'd just won the lottery.

"Coca-Cola," he said, slamming his wallet into Lelouch's hand. "Regular; oh, and a can, if there's a choice. You know I collect the ring-pulls."

"Yes, I know you collect the ring-pulls, Rivalz," Lelouch sighed, and he sauntered out of the boy's changing room and down the hall.

He wasn't gone long – the first vending machine he came to had regular Coca-Cola in a can with a ring-pull, so he was on his way back to the changing room with it in less than two minutes.

The atmosphere upon his return, however, had changed phenomenally.

Instead of the idle chatter and bursts of laughter that had prevailed before, there was a sudden awful hush; and where all the boys had been going about their own business of getting changed and putting their things away, now they were all suddenly clustered around the edges of the wall separating the string of showers from the rest of the room.

At first Lelouch thought to just ignore whatever the hell they were all so intrigued by, despite the fact that even _Rivalz_ was over at the wall, looking like he was trying to worm his way through to the front of the crowd; instead he put Rivalz's Coke down on the bench and was opening his friend's bag to put his wallet back in when he realised that he _couldn't_ ignore this.

Over the dreadful silence – the silence of bystanders – he heard Jason Kingsley's voice, and he heard his words, and he knew that he could not disregard them.

("Damned fucking Eleven! Don't start deluding yourself that you're the same as us just because you're good at something!")

Lelouch was not strong, but it was anger or adrenaline or both that was injected into his muscles as he forced himself between his classmates, even shoving Rivalz out of his way to break through the crowd and emerge on the other side of sickening spectacle.

He could have predicted it, but Suzaku wasn't reacting at all. Jason Kingsley had the Japanese boy by the hair and one of his followers – a boy with stringy brown hair and glasses – was twisting one of his arms up behind his back. Suzaku was on his knees, and next to him, soaked through, was his towel, presumably thrown there by the third boy, silvery hair tied back in a low ponytail.

But it was ridiculous. Lelouch knew Suzaku. He knew that he wasn't in any pain; his whole body was loose and relaxed and so his tormentors weren't actually hurting him, even if they didn't realise it.

It only made Lelouch angrier. Suzaku could easily get the both of them off him despite being at a disadvantage – he was a trained soldier. He could snap Jason Kingsley's neck, if only the mood took him. It was one thing to be weak, to be at the mercy of those stronger than you; it was quite _another_ to _be_ stronger and still allow yourself to be bullied.

Suzaku was strong – and yet he wasn't responding. He wasn't even _looking_ at Jason.

Jason had noticed _that_, at least.

"Look at me, you piece of trash!" He grabbed Suzaku's chin with his other hand and forced his head up. "I'm sick of you, Number! Get the fuck out of our school before I—"

"What the hell is wrong with you?!" Lelouch exploded, grabbing Jason's shoulder; more because he needed him to turn around, he needed eye contact with him—

Lelouch felt himself get shoved forwards with so much force that he lost his balance and crumpled before Jason Kingsley had properly turned to him; the silver-haired boy had slammed him squarely in the back on seeing him touch Jason. He landed shy of the still-running showers and pushed himself up again just in time to see Suzaku finally react and wrench his head out of Jason's grasp.

"What's the matter?" Jason taunted, kicking Suzaku in the ribs. "Don't like seeing someone touch your boyfriend?"

That, of course, was exactly it; but if Suzaku planned to actually retaliate, his moment of glory was cut short by Rivalz finally managing to get to the front of the crowd and throwing his hands out.

"Stop it!" he yelled desperately. "This is stupid!"

"Oh, why I am not surprised that Lamperouge and Cardemonde came to rescue the Number?" Jason spat, whirling on Rivalz.

"Just because he beat you—" Rivalz started.

"An Eleven did not _beat_ me!" Jason screeched, shoving Rivalz backwards and turning again towards Suzaku—

Lelouch was standing in front of him, blocking his path.

Lelouch cursed inwardly; he now had perfect eye contact with Jason, but Jason had his back to the crowd whilst Lelouch himself was facing them. He couldn't use Geass in this position – everyone would see him do it, and even if all it looked like to them was that Lelouch Lamperouge told Jason Kingsley to do something and Jason Kingsley suddenly obeyed him without question...

No, that was part of Zero's mythos. Even for Suzaku, he couldn't risk that – especially not in _front_ of Suzaku.

So he merely stood his ground, a wafer-thin and worthless defence. Jason Kingsley merely grinned and cocked back his fist, apparently more than willing to knock Lelouch into the middle of next week—

"_Boys_!" The gym teacher had dispersed the students clustered at the edges of the fray and sent them scampering back to their belongings with only that one word. Only Rivalz hung back, though he fled when the teacher swatted at him with his clipboard.

"What's the meaning of this?!" the teacher demanded. "Mr Kingsley, you know very well that I do not tolerate any kind of oppressive or abusive behaviour on my time. That goes for the both of you too, Mr Jackson and Mr Brown. All three of you can come for a detention this afternoon." He waved his hand at them. "Now get out of my sight."

The boy called Brown let go of Suzaku's arm and sidled away with silver-haired boy, Jackson. Jason Kingsley opened his mouth, apparently to protest against the unfairness of being thrown into detention for the small offence of purposefully mistreating someone purely on the basis of where they were born—

"Kingsley, I don't want to hear it," the gym teacher said, not looking up from where he was making a note on his clipboard. "When I look up, if you're still in my field of view, you can come for detention tomorrow afternoon as well."

Jason closed his mouth, visibly huffed, glared at both Lelouch and Suzaku and stalked away.

"Kururugi, get up," the gym teacher went on expressionlessly. "Lamperouge, you're not even meant to be in here."

He gave a curt nod as Suzaku rose, turned on his heel and swept out of the still-silent changing room.

Lelouch and Suzaku said nothing to each other; they didn't even look in one another's direction. Lelouch was so angry, with both Jason Kingsley _and_ Suzaku, that he didn't trust himself to speak; and Suzaku himself...

Well, Lelouch didn't know. The Japanese boy didn't seem to be particularly fazed by his ordeal, merely picking his up his wet, heavy towel. He had presumably already showered but now he had nothing to dry himself with. Lelouch felt that he should pity him but he couldn't – he was so sickeningly furious with him for just... just _taking_ that kind of abuse—

It was uncanny. It was as though Lelouch had brought it on Suzaku by what he had said only that morning. Or maybe it had simply been Suzaku's proof: That he would not fight, only protect. After all, it was true enough that Suzaku hadn't reacted at all until Jackson had pushed _Lelouch_.

Rivalz, fully-dressed, came over with his own towel, holding it out to Suzaku.

"You can use mine," he said. "I'm afraid it's a little damp, but... well, it's in better shape than yours."

Suzaku took the towel and smiled.

"Thanks, Rivalz," he said. He started away back over to the benches, Rivalz at his side, so that he could get dried and changed.

As though nothing had happened.

The atmosphere was disgusting. The silence of bystanders who couldn't wait to get out of the earshot of the victim so that they could compare notes on what had just happened. They had all just stood there – even those five other boys who had been on Suzaku's team during the lesson, who had whooped and cheered his name as he had dragged himself out of the water first and won. None of them had said a word in his defence. None of them had told him to pull himself together. None of them had said _anything_.

Lelouch looked at Suzaku as he walked away – _really_ looked at him. He was still wearing only his swim shorts, so all of the muscles that moved like machinery beneath his skin were visible, crashing and ebbing like the sea with every movement. He was built like some great beast of prey, and yet between those broad shoulders, just beneath the right blade, was the scar.

Because he wouldn't fight. Only protect.

"Lelouch?" Suzaku suddenly spoke to him, turning back. "Why are you still standing in the showers? You're going to get wet." He came back towards him, slinging the towel that Rivalz had lent him over his shoulder. "Come on."

He reached the Britannian boy and took his wrist, pulling at him. Lelouch let himself be dragged, but he looked at Suzaku's hand, evaluating how tightly he was holding him, how assertively he was hauling him along.

Not very.

Despite Suzaku's greater strength, Lelouch very easily managed to wrench his arm out of his grasp. He suddenly couldn't stand to have Suzaku touching him. He didn't want to be anywhere _near_ him. It wasn't superiority over the Japanese boy that he felt – in fact, it was almost the opposite.

_You're better than this, Suzaku. You're one of the kindest and most honest people I have ever met. __**Why**__ do you let people treat you as if you're not worth the dirt they tread on?_

He _hated_ that Suzaku was just acting as if nothing had happened; and as much as Lelouch Lamperouge hated being ordered around, he hated even _more_ that Suzaku was somehow still submissive even when he was dominant, he hated that he just accepted everything no matter how wrong it seemed, he hated—

_(Everything's always fine with you, isn't it?)_

God, at the moment, he actually felt like he hated _Suzaku_. He loathed his passiveness. He despised his subservience to whoever made a bid to conquer him. It was ridiculous that someone so physically strong, someone trained to kill or to die with honour, could be so _weak_—

"Lelouch?" Seeming puzzled, Suzaku reached for Lelouch's shoulder.

"Don't _touch_ me!" Lelouch jerked out of his range and side-stepped him.

Suzaku merely blinked at him, stunned – his hand frozen mid-reach for his best friend. Rivalz, who had cracked open his Coke, also jerked to a halt, can almost at his mouth.

Lelouch tore his eyes away from Suzaku's, snatched up his bag and left the changing room without a word. He half-ran down the corridor, only stopping when he got around the corner. It hadn't been quite strenuous enough to steal his breath, but nonetheless he sank against the wall and closed his eyes and gasped as though he was suffocating.

The look in Suzaku's eyes in that last moment before Lelouch had broken their gazes had jarred his sense of compassion back into working order. _His_ words had hurt Suzaku in way that Jason Kingsley's hadn't – and never could.

He understood too the sudden hatred. What he had felt for Suzaku, that disgust, that pure loathing and sense of despair all merged into one...

That was what Suzaku felt for _himself_. He had seen Suzaku Kururugi as _Suzaku Kururugi_ saw Suzaku Kururugi. Was that what he felt whenever he caught his own reflection; whenever someone said his name; whenever he made love to Lelouch and the boy who had once been an eleventh prince clung to him and whispered in his ear that he loved him?

Did he hate himself then?

Lelouch straightened. He had to go back. He still didn't understand why Suzaku didn't rebel when he had every right to, but he couldn't... he couldn't let Suzaku think that he hated him as Suzaku hated himself.

(Not even Jason Kingsley hated Suzaku as much as Suzaku hated himself.)

Speaking of Jason Kingsley... Lelouch heard his voice drifting from somewhere off down the hall; his words were indiscernible but his tone was much the same as the one he had used in the changing room, although it was true that he no longer had the privilege of flinging his savage words at Suzaku. He must be mouthing off at one of his stragglers. It was some Ye Olde High School Mystery, but _how_ people like Jason Kingsley had _any_ friends was truly remarkable...

Lelouch shrugged and started back towards the changing room; but then he stopped. Wait. This was _perfect_. Just Jason Kingsley and his Band of Merry Spineless Chauvinists. No-one else was around.

He turned back and followed the sound of the retreating voices down the corridor; the gym was a large building and therefore, despite not actually having very many rooms, the corridors were rather long and could take you quite a way. When he reached the next corner, he found himself really pretty far from the changing room and instead in the one hallway of small classrooms for those doing theoretical classes in sports and physiology. The corridor was deserted, but he could still hear the voices, the one speaking now belonging to Jackson.

There was a sudden explosion of idiotic, hyena-like laughter, leading Lelouch to the third classroom on the right. The door was ajar, and he pushed it open to find that Jason Kingsley and four of his buddies – Jackson, Brown, a redheaded boy with a splash of freckles across the bridge of his nose and a fourth blonde boy with a bandana bearing the Britannian flag tied around his forehead – had apparently set up camp in the empty classroom, presumably in favour of going to their next class.

Lelouch couldn't exactly be all high and mighty regarding the sinful practice of skipping class since he was hardly Lesson Attendee of the Year himself; although, naturally, that wasn't what he was here to "teach them a lesson" on.

"Jesus, Lamperouge, you back for more already?" Brown sneered, noticing him first as he stepped into the room in silence.

Brown rose from the chair he'd been sprawled across in a clear effort to look cool and placed himself in front of Lelouch, grinning at him.

Mistake.

From that point on, Brown's freewill regarding his dealings with Suzaku Kururugi was no longer his; Lelouch gave him the order to never go anywhere near Suzaku again loudly and clearly, knowing it would attract the attention of the others and more than likely make them all but line up to be dealt much the same fate.

His eyes glazed, Brown gave an absent nod and didn't say anything. Satisfied, Lelouch was smiling when the redhead grabbed him by the shoulder and whipped him around to face him.

"What the hell did you just say?" he demanded, shaking Lelouch; and it was true that he really _was_ quite a lot bigger than the violet-eyed boy – not that it mattered much when one of those violet eyes turned crimson as their gazes locked.

"I _said_," Lelouch repeated calmly, still smiling, "don't ever go near Suzaku Kururugi again."

The redheaded boy's grasp on Lelouch's slender shoulders slackened as he, like Brown, merely nodded once, his green eyes edged with the red ring that bound him to Lelouch's will. Lelouch slipped out of his grip as he felt the movement behind him, turned towards his third victim—

Jackson cracked him across the face with his fist, breaking any and all eye contact with him. Lelouch stumbled against one of the desks, practically knocked senseless.

"I've been wanting to do that for a while," Jackson spat as Lelouch pushed himself up again, dabbing at his bleeding mouth on his cuff.

Hissing, furious, Lelouch turned back towards him, determined to get the job done; being rewarded with Jackson's fist sinking into his gut. Already winded from the first blow, Lelouch collapsed with something between a cough and a strangled cry, clutching at his stomach as he gasped for breath.

"Hey, don't beat the crap out of him just yet, Sam," Jason Kingsley suddenly said from where he was sitting on the large teacher's desk at the front of the small classroom – he had been surprisingly quiet all this time. "Bring him over here."

"Gonna teach him a lesson, Jay?" the blonde boy with the bandana crowed delightedly as Jackson reached down and grabbed Lelouch by the collar of his uniform jacket and started to drag him across the floor towards Jason.

Still in pain from both punches that Jackson had landed on him all-too-successfully, Lelouch nonetheless reached up to claw at the bigger boy's hand, trying to disentangle his fingers from his collar.

"Unhand me!" he ordered, attempting to resist being hauled like a ragdoll across the room to no avail.

"Shut your trap, Lamperouge," Jackson bit out, wrenching him to his feet and shoving him towards Jason.

Lelouch straightened himself despite the pain in his gut, drawing himself up to meet Jason Kingsley's gaze and put a stop to this once and for all—

Jason wasn't looking at him, instead looking past him and motioning to one of his little gang. It was exceedingly frustrating, but Lelouch had noticed by now that Jason Kingsley actually very _rarely_ made eye contact with him. Even on the school trip, when all of this had started, it was true that Jason actually hadn't met Lelouch's gaze even when addressing/insulting/telling him to shut the hell up.

"_Hey_," Lelouch snapped, his left eye actually beginning to _burn_ with just how ready he was to strip Jason Kingsley of his superior self-righteousness; and he figured he might as well attempt to rile the bigger boy into looking at him. "Rivalz was right, you know; you can't take the fact that someone who isn't a full-blooded Britannian managed to—"

"Christ, shut the fuck _up_!" Jason raged, backhanding him.

Hit twice in the same place, tasting fresh blood, Lelouch staggered against the large desk, bracing himself with his hands to prevent himself from going to the floor again. He was starting to straighten once more, spitting blood onto the surface of the desk, when he felt the fingers go to the back of his skull and force him down again, slamming his forehead against the wood so hard that his vision shuddered with black for several long, scary moments.

"Sam, Kyle, hold him down," he heard Jason say tersely.

The boy's tone wasn't taunting, as perhaps Lelouch had expected it to be. On the contrary, he sounded... calm, strangely devoid of emotion despite having screeched at Lelouch mere moments before.

"Take your hands off me!" Lelouch ordered furiously, but with his forehead still pressed against the desk's surface all he was looking at were the grains of wood. His voice alone was not enough to give power to his Geass. He struggled, trying to squirm loose so that he could turn his head and lock gazes with someone, _anyone_, but he wasn't strong enough, wincing as the fingers at the back of his head dug tighter and deeper into his scalp.

In accordance with Jason Kingsley's orders, the blonde boy and Jackson had taken hold of him, pressing down his shoulders and holding his arms locked still. They had bent him over the desk, all of his torso flat against the surface of it, holding him down so tightly that even though his legs were free, he didn't have any leverage to try and force himself upright again.

He had gone silent, only panting, looking down at the wood and his mind racing. He wasn't an idiot. In this position, it was obvious that he was either going to get smacked or fucked.

Or both.

Had he been too hasty? Too arrogant? It had seemed like such a fantastic idea and it was true that it _had_ been going well until...

Well. Until _this_.

He didn't speak. He couldn't. It wasn't even fear – it was really something more like anger and... _shock_. Frankly, he was _stunned_ that this turn-around had happened. This hadn't been in his calculations. He hadn't predicted it. Perhaps he _should_ have, for didn't a brilliant tactician foresee and thus evade every predictable and logical outcome? But—

The force with which Jason Kingsley's broad hand came against his ass jarred right through his thin frame, making him bite at his bottom lip and hiss. There was nothing kinky or sexy or arousing or whatever else about being bent over a desk and spanked – it just fucking _hurt_, and he was under the impression that that was entirely the point.

He made no sound other than that hiss, however; determined that they would hear nothing more from him. Perhaps they wanted him to shriek and beg for mercy and cry that they were right and he now saw the error of his ways, and they would get nothing of the sort. They were all bigger and stronger than him, he knew that they could seriously hurt him if they really wanted to, but even if he had managed to get himself caught up in the bloody centre of a feud between Japanese and Britannians (because even if he didn't retaliate, Suzaku couldn't _like_ those who abused him, right?), he would stand his ground.

Be it on his house or on his head.

"Are you going to be like him, huh, Lamperouge?" Jason murmured venomously, lifting his hand when he saw that Lelouch had restrained himself from making a sound. "Are you just going to take it? I guess that's desirable behaviour from a piece of shit like him, knowing his place and all, but _you_..."

His temper seemed to spike and Lelouch gave a stifled, gasping cry of pain as the Britannian boy slammed his fist into the small of his back.

"You and Cardemonde make me sick," Jason went on as Lelouch coughed with the pain of having his spine hit. "That fucking Eleven needs to know he's not welcome here, and you and Cardemonde and that dumb Fenette girl all pal up to him and make him feel like he has every right in the world to be here!"

"He _does_!" Lelouch bit out, despite knowing that the words would cost him.

(They did. His aching head was slammed against the desk again, the pain making him feel like his skull was about to split in two.)

"But this is _worse_," Jason went on, his temper flaring again. "You're willing to take this treatment because you _still_ insist on disagreeing with us. What the hell has that damned Number ever done to make you think it's okay to treat him like he's one of us?"

"He's my best friend," Lelouch replied, actually... feeling himself begin to calm down. Despite the pain in his head and back, despite the fact that he knew he was still in a terrible position – at their mercy – something about Jason Kingsley's words, the way he was saying them, calmed him down.

The guy was a simpleton. His ridiculous, blinkered views of race and superiority were so idiotic and narrow-minded that Lelouch suddenly didn't feel so threatened by him.

"No self-respecting Britannian is friends with a Number," Jason growled; he gave a short, despairing-sounding little sigh. "But then, I guess no self-respecting Britannian lets themselves get _fucked_ by a Number, either."

"Oh, you knew?" Lelouch injected something of a laugh into his voice, his words bubbling over it. "I guess it's no secret that I would never be able to overpower Suzaku, given that he spends so much of his time training to fight against the Black Knights to keep jerks like _you_ safe from harm." He clenched his useless fists. "You're the just the kind of person Zero would order against a wall and shoot in the head. Lucky for you Suzaku would never allow that to happen."

"I don't need Kururugi to save me from some idiot terrorist in a mask!" Jason spat, ramming his knee up between Lelouch's legs, forcing them apart.

Lelouch bit at his lip again, feeling Jason's knee grinding painfully against his crotch.

"At least tell me you make him thank you," the Britannian boy went on, lowering his voice to a savage lull. "Tell me you make him thank you for the privilege of being allowed to—"

"Of course I don't," Lelouch interrupted, his voice quick and breathless, barely able to stop himself from speaking now. "Why would I make him _thank_ me?"

"Because he's a worthless—" Jason seemed so angry that he couldn't finish, instead forcing his knee harder against Lelouch's groin, making him shudder with the pain of it. "You might be the lowest of the low, Lamperouge, but you're still a Britannian – a pure-blood one, as if it isn't fucking obvious, both you _and_ that pretty little sister of yours – and that means that that Number should be grateful if you told him to lick your shoes clean, never _mind_ letting him... letting him...!"

"I love him," Lelouch laughed. The pain between his legs was almost unbearable, but still he laughed. "I love him and you can't stop me. No matter what you do to me, no matter what you say, I'll still love him, and the next time he allows _me_ the privilege of sharing his bed, I'll laugh at you just the way I'm laughing at you now. We _both_ will."

There was silence. It was true that only Lelouch and Jason had been speaking, but the sudden pause in their clashing was dreadful. Lelouch had insulted Jason Kingsley to such an extent that the bigger boy was actually still reeling from it, and apparently so were the others.

It was a completely different silence from before.

Lelouch laughed again. He couldn't help it. He knew he was in absolutely no position to _be_ laughing, but the appalling silence meant that he had won. No matter what Jason Kingsley did, no matter what he said... He could murder Lelouch, hack up his body and plaster him up in the wall and he'd still have lost. That silence said it all. That absolute lack of a response was Lelouch's victory.

So he laughed.

Jason didn't hit him again; in fact, he even lowered his knee, sliding it back down between Lelouch's thighs until his foot reached the floor. Over his giggles Lelouch heard the bigger boy behind him fumble with his belt and his zipper; he knew perfectly well was Jason was going to do to him and it wasn't _remotely_ funny but still he couldn't stop laughing. It was breathless and mechanical, maybe bred only by adrenaline, but he laughed still even when Jason kicked his legs further apart, almost as wide as someone as unfit and inflexible as Lelouch Lamperouge could go, and reached around him, hands aggressively going beneath him to start loosening up his belt.

Lelouch understood. _He_ wasn't the one cornered here – at least not mentally. Jason was doing this only because he felt that it was the only way to take revenge. Ironically, he seemed to think that the only way to assert himself over Lelouch – to voice his disgust at the fact that Lelouch allowed himself to be dominated by an "Eleven" – was to _mimic_ Suzaku Kururugi.

In a lot of ways, it actually _was_ kind of funny. Lelouch didn't want to be shagged by Jason Kingsley, he didn't want the racist bastard even _touching_ him, but the joke itself...

...really was just too damn perfect.

Even his pitying sigh was laced with another mad little giggle as Jason's hand slid lower and his fingers found the ex-prince's (_pure-blood? You have __**no**__ idea_...) button and zipper—

And then, suddenly, Jason's weight was gone; torn off him. Even the holds of Jackson and the blonde-bandana boy seemed to lessen slightly, and he heard Jackson suddenly hiss "_Fuck_... Kururugi..." and then the hand clamped against the back of his skull was gone too.

Lelouch lifted his head as much as he was able, which wasn't much, as he was still being held against the desk. He heard Jason Kingsley give a grunt of pain somewhere behind him, but it was rather drowned out by what sounded very much like him getting a few of his teeth knocked out.

There was a sudden scramble and flurry and both the blonde and Jackson let go of Lelouch completely, moving away from the desk. Taking a deep breath, aching in several places more than slightly, Lelouch put his hands on the desk and pushed himself up. He stood for a long moment with his back to the pandemonium going on behind him, just listening to it.

Finally he turned. Jason, Jackson and the blonde were all throwing themselves in various manners at Suzaku – it was notable that the other two (Brown and the redhead) were standing back against the wall, as far from the newcomer as they could get, still and silent and their eyes ringed with crimson.

The placid, unreacting Suzaku Kururugi from barely ten minutes ago was not present; in his place, wearing his skin, was some terrible machine absolutely hell-bent on what seemed like _killing_ his attackers. No motion that he made was wasted; every dodge or duck was followed through with some liquid kick to Jackson's side or an elbow slammed into Jason's chest. The blonde-bandana kid was on the floor clutching at his ribs and barely lifting himself by the time Jackson joined him, hand clamped to what was most likely a broken nose.

Lelouch watched and gripped the edges of the desk with white fingers and felt his chest grow tight with exhilaration. Suzaku's temper was one of the most amazing things he had ever seen in his entire life.

Suzaku blocked and deflected a punch from Jason – who had blood running down his chin – without even turning to him; his strong fingers clamped around the Britannian boy's wrist and he wrenched it downwards and twisted and there was a sickening _pop_ as the limb was completely dislocated from its socket.

Jason had barely opened his mouth to scream by the time Suzaku followed the motion through with the rest of his body, whirling into a kick that sent the blonde boy slamming forwards against the desk he had had Lelouch pinned against hardly a minute before. Jason collapsed in a quivering heap at Lelouch's feet, gagging on the pain.

If only he'd have cared to look up, he would have seen a demon looking curiously down at him; Lelouch was grinning, every last one of his neurons and nerves thrilled by that display.

It was as though someone had reached right into the core of Suzaku's being and reprogrammed him, grabbed a whole handful of wires and reconnected them into completely different sockets – and the best part about the whole thing was that the his face was absolutely expressionless, and had been the entire time.

Not even a little out of breath, Suzaku turned towards Lelouch. His jade eyes seemed dull and lifeless but there was something _else_ in there too, hidden behind the programme hack. He held out his hand towards the ex-prince and Lelouch stepped forwards to take it; however, Suzaku turned his hand over and grabbed Lelouch's wrist, much the way he had Jason's.

His grip was nothing like the weak suggestion back in the changing room. He pulled on Lelouch insistently and Lelouch went with him because this time he had no choice.

He was still grinning.

Suzaku barely gave him a chance to retrieve his bag and _certainly_ didn't give him a chance to buckle his belt, which was hanging open and beginning to slide out of the loops on the waist of his jacket. He didn't say anything, didn't even look at him, as he dragged him out of the classroom and down the corridor. He only let go of Lelouch once they were back in the changing room.

It was completely deserted.

Dropping Lelouch's wrist, Suzaku went to get his own bag from where he'd left it half-unpacked on the bench. Very slowly, very silently, he started to finish packing it – rolling up his damp swimming shorts and putting his sports bottle back into its compartment.

As though nothing had happened.

(System reset.)

Lelouch put his own schoolbag down and righted his clothing, buttoning his trousers and sliding his open belt back into place, guiding it back through the buckle. He watched Suzaku – still with his back to him – zip up his bag.

The Japanese boy straightened, but he said nothing.

"Suzaku?" Lelouch asked finally, his voice quiet, every last laugh wrung right out of it.

Still Suzaku didn't make a sound. Lelouch hesitated, then approached him slowly, slipping his hands onto his best friend's broad shoulders. He half-expected Suzaku to shrug him off, but he didn't. He didn't react at all.

Lelouch sighed and slipped his hands down and underneath Suzaku's arms, winding his own arms around the soldier's chest. He kissed the nape of his neck and then lay his cheek against it, closing his eyes.

"It's you," Suzaku said finally, his voice odd, almost hoarse. "_You're_ the one who makes me do things like..."

"Mm." Lelouch didn't protest against it – not that he really had any clue as to what Suzaku was talking about. "I'm sorry... that you always have to protect me."

Suzaku took a deep, ragged breath of his own, as though either about to speak or trying to stop himself from crying. In the end, however, all he did was reach up and unwind Lelouch from himself as though removing a thread of persistently-clingy ivy, stepping forwards to retrieve his bag and sling it over his shoulder. Lelouch took the hint and went back to his own bag, picking it up; watching in silence as Suzaku very briefly buried his face in his right hand.

"Suzaku—" he started again, this time his tone a little more desperate.

"Don't you _dare_ thank me," Suzaku snapped, raising his head again. He composed himself and started towards the door, passing Lelouch as though he wasn't even there.

Lelouch grabbed his hand, making him turn sharply back to him.

"I wasn't going to," he replied curtly.

He put his hand to the back of Suzaku's skull and pulled him into a kiss, bringing their mouths together almost impatiently. Suzaku remained motionless for a long, painful moment; _finally_, as with all of his reactions today, it seemed, he retaliated, his own hand going to Lelouch's jawline to force him to tilt his head.

When they finally came up for air, Lelouch met his gaze and opened his mouth to speak—

"And don't you dare tell me that you love me for it, either," Suzaku said savagely, still with his fingers firmly against the underside of Lelouch's jaw.

The grin fluttered back onto Lelouch's face like a particularly poisonous butterfly.

"I wouldn't dream of it."

—

Suzaku didn't appear very surprised when the girl – a higher year than them, maybe from Milly's – knocked on the door and disrupted their English Literature class with a message that Suzaku Kururugi's presence was being demanded immediately by Dr Ashford in his office.

Lelouch, quite frankly, wasn't all that surprised either; the seats of Jason Kingsley, Jackson and bandana-boy were all still empty. It was far more likely that the three of them were occupying seats in the school hospital wing.

The teacher merely nodded and gestured at Shirley, who was in the middle of reading aloud a passage from _The Lord of the Flies_, to continue. She paid absolutely no attention to Suzaku as he got out of his seat, leaving all of his things, and slowly and silently made his way towards the door. In fact, she only properly looked up when—

"Lelouch Lamperouge, where do you think you're going?" she demanded sharply.

Lelouch, having gotten up and followed Suzaku without waiting for an invitation from anyone, paused.

"Well, I was just..."

He gave a little shake of his head, trying to think how best to phrase it without giving too much away; the rest of the class suddenly seemed to have become terribly interested in the quiet Eleven boy who sat at the back of the class between Lelouch and Rivalz and did his best not to draw attention to himself and Lelouch was loathe to feed their vulture-like curiosity. No doubt it would be all over the school that the Eleven had beaten the crap out of three unfortunate Britannians minding their own business by tomorrow morning, anyway, so he was rather in favour of keeping it between himself, Suzaku and the trio of tragic victims as long as he could.

"The reason Dr Ashford wants to see Suzaku, I was... kind of involved too, so—"

"Dr Ashford did not send for you."

"I know that, but—"

"So sit down."

The teacher's tone was cold and final and Lelouch knew – grudgingly – that he would have to oblige. He may have once been a prince and he may have had Geass and he may have been Zero, the leader of a rebellion, but none of those things entitled him to throw a tantrum and refuse to obey a teacher. He went back to his seat, seething.

"What happened?" Rivalz whispered, leaning towards him. "I thought Suzaku seemed like he was in a funny mood—"

"Mr Cardemonde, if you please," the teacher snapped. "Mr Lamperouge and Mr Kururugi already disrupted the class by turning up late, and now this... All of you, _concentrate_, if you don't mind. Miss Fenette, whenever you're ready."

Lelouch was content to glare out of the window for the remaining ten minutes of the lesson, his cheek resting on his hand. Rivalz was persistent, slipping a folded-up note under his elbow; Lelouch opened it one-handed, glancing down at it briefly.

_What happened?_

Lelouch rolled his eyes, but nonetheless wrote on the back of the note:

_J K pushed S too far and got what he deserved_

Rivalz blinked at the answer, then quickly crumpled it in his hand and jammed it into his pencil-case, perhaps in fear of dropping it so that someone else might pick it up and decipher it.

"Good," he muttered, going back to his book.

Lelouch was almost tempted to smile at that response, but honestly, he was too... _worried_. Dr Ruben K. Ashford, the headmaster or principal or whatever of Ashford Academy – Milly's _grandfather_, incidentally – was a fair man. He was also rather kind-hearted, extending his hands towards the helpless (as Lelouch and Nunnally had been after the Britannian invasion of Japan). And, while Ashford Academy was pretty much exclusively for those of pure Britannian blood, he had obliged Princess Euphemia's request and allowed Suzaku Kururugi – of pure Japanese blood – to enrol. He, like his granddaughter, did not seem to be racist or supremacist; _but_...

Well. Jason Kingsley – and the other two – _had_ gotten what they had deserved. Suzaku would never have laid a hand on them if only they hadn't provoked him. However... this was school, and schools had rules, and dislocating the arm of one of your fellow students was against those rules.

That wasn't to say that _Jason_ hadn't overstepped the mark. What he had been about to do to Lelouch was _worse_ than a dislocated shoulder, but Lelouch and Suzaku had only their word against the actual physical evidence of Jason's arm hanging out of its socket.

That, and – despite Dr Ashford being a fair and non-racist man – the fact that Suzaku was Japanese probably wasn't going to do him any favours. It was simply Britannian policy, enforced throughout every occupied territory across the globe. The Numbers were inferior, therefore they were treated as unequal and that was that. If Jason's parents got involved...

Lelouch could feel himself starting to panic. What if Suzaku was _expelled_ because of this? It was likely – he had attacked and seriously hurt three Britannian students. How would it reflect on him, if he was thrown out of the school in disgrace? Would the fact that he hadn't been able to get along with Britannians his own age have an effect on his army career? Would he be stripped of his rank as a Major? Would Euphemia, terribly disappointed in him, turn her back on him in disgust?

And it was all _his_ fault. He had only been trying to help, to stop them from bullying Suzaku based only on his blood (and it _was_ true that two of them would never come near Suzaku again for as long as they lived), but... but if he'd only just left things alone as Suzaku himself had wanted, he wouldn't have needed to be saved and Suzaku wouldn't have...

He bolted upright the second the bell rang, scrambling out of his seat.

"Will you grab our stuff?" he asked Rivalz as he passed him.

"What?" Rivalz asked. "Wait, hey...!"

Lelouch didn't wait for a reply, the first one to the door of the room; he wrenched it open and spilled himself out into the hall, almost tripping over himself. He righted himself as he started to run down the wide corridor, thinking blindly that no matter what happened, no matter what it cost him, he couldn't allow Suzaku to take all the blame for what had happened – as he no doubt _would_.

His side was already burning as he started up the wide staircase in the entrance hall and he knew he was going to be horribly out of breath by the time he reached Dr Ashford's office – on the third floor of the main school building – but still he ran, as though for his life, taking the steps two at a time.

(Incidentally, his lungs had all but recovered to their usual state by now, but that note said six weeks and he was going to _have_ his six weeks.)

Having fallen into a frozen lake and almost drowning had no effect on the way he panted, gasping for breath, as he finally reached the door to Dr Ashford's office; leaning against the ornate oak for a moment, clutching at the stitch in his side. He allowed himself barely a moment for recovery, however much he needed it, practically falling into the room after giving only the scarcest of knocks.

_Suzaku_ seemed more surprised and annoyed to see him than Dr Ashford did, starting half out of his seat before the headmaster's desk.

"_Lelouch_...!"

"Dr Ashford," Lelouch said breathlessly, ignoring Suzaku as he leaned against the door, partly to shut it and partly for something to support himself against. "It wasn't Suzaku's... I mean, he wouldn't have... if it wasn't for me, then—"

"Will you stay _out_ of this?!" Suzaku snapped. "It was _you_ meddling in the first place—!"

"I know, I _know_ it was..." Still getting his breath back, Lelouch crossed to Dr Ashford's desk – the man was merely observing him in silence, having not said a word upon or since his grand entrance. "Dr Ashford, please... I'm sure Suzaku didn't tell you this himself, but... it really wasn't his fault. He was just defending _me_."

Silence. Lelouch lowered his head; and, as he did so, looked aside through his hair at Suzaku. The Japanese boy's fists were clenched and his expression was very bitter, but he too said nothing. It was likely that he had been omitting the truth regarding what had provoked him, which was why he had clammed up now.

"And did you need defending?" Dr Ashford finally asked.

Lelouch's head snapped up again. Out of the corner of his eye he looked once more at Suzaku, but his friend still wouldn't meet his gaze.

"Yes," he replied at length.

Dr Ashford _hmm_ed and appeared to sink into thought for a moment. What seemed like an hour (but really it couldn't have been more than a few moments) later he turned his cool grey eyes back upon Suzaku.

"Mr Kururugi, would you mind waiting outside for a moment?"

Suzaku looked up, blinking in bewilderment.

"I... o-of course, sir." He faltered a little, then turned on his heel and promptly left the room, not even looking at Lelouch.

"Dr Ashford," Lelouch started desperately as he heard the door close behind him, "sir—"

"Sit down," Dr Ashford interrupted quietly, gesturing the seat in front of his desk that had previously been occupied by Suzaku.

Lelouch, derailed, didn't move.

"Lelouch, please," the man repeated, sounding rather tired. "Sit down."

It was more the sudden use of his first name that made Lelouch wordlessly obey, dutifully sinking into the chair. He looked at Dr Ashford and didn't say anything. This obviously wasn't the first time he had ever met him – in fact, he had lost count of the times he had met him, given that he was Milly's grandfather – but right now he was reminded of the day he had stood in this office, barely eleven years old, with Nunnally (still too young to attend the school) clutching at his hand. Dr Ashford had smiled down at them both then and said that Ashford Academy would offer them fresh hope and a new start.

Naturally, this man was one of the only people in the world who knew that the pale, too-thin boy (still flushed from the running) sitting tensely before him was Britannia's lost eleventh prince.

"I'm not surprised you came up here," Dr Ashford said at long last. "I might have known that that Kururugi boy would unsettle you, but Princess Euphemia was very insistent... Honestly, I was rather taken aback by her request. Suzaku Kururugi disappeared after his father's suicide. I don't like to say it, but frankly I thought that he was dead."

Lelouch's fists clenched on his knees.

"So did I," he replied quietly.

"Lelouch, I want you to understand something," Dr Ashford went on, his voice very calm and soft. "I debated refusing to allow Suzaku Kururugi to join the academy, and despite the fact that this _is_ a Britannian school, his nationality wasn't my reason. My family has protected you and your sister in every way that we can, hiding you because we believed that that was best. I was loathe to allow a tie to your past as vivid and blatant as Suzaku Kururugi come near you, but I persuaded myself that it might be alright. I reasoned that it was likely he wouldn't realise that you were the same person as Lelouch Vi Britannia, or that perhaps you and he wouldn't even _want_ to be friends anymore..." The man gave a sudden sigh. "Apparently I was wrong about _that_. It has come to my attention that you are very rarely _not_ in one another's company, at least on school grounds."

Lelouch looked down at his lap and didn't say anything.

"Well," Dr Ashford sighed, leaning back in his chair, "I'm not going to tell you who to be friends with. It's not as though I could enforce an order for you to stay away from each other, anyway. But I want to know something. I want to know if _you_ understand the risk that Kururugi poses to you. It's not as if he's low-profile these days, not after he was charged with Prince Clovis' murder..."

"I... understand," Lelouch said dully, looking up at Dr Ashford. "But how can I turn my back on him? He's my best friend, and... he has nothing else." He hesitated for a long, painful moment. "...Are you going to expel him?"

Dr Ashford was silent for a long while himself.

"Despite my misgivings about Kururugi," he said finally, "I _do_ find it difficult to believe that he would inflict that kind of damage on others unless he was goaded into doing so. I am aware that he has found it very difficult to fit in here and that some of the students are less than happy about his presence. However—"

"They were bullying him in the showers and he didn't touch them," Lelouch cut in, his voice quick and anxious. "He didn't fight back, he just let them pick on him. He only hurt them when... well, he was just saving me from them—"

"Yes, I can see that you seem to have been through the wars yourself," Dr Ashford interjected coolly, nodding towards Lelouch's bottom lip, swollen from where Jackson had punched him. It had stopped bleeding but it still hurt very much. "And I am sure that you will find it interesting that this is hardly the first time that Jason Kingsley's less-than-socially-acceptable behaviour has been brought to my attention. _However_... as I was saying, school rules are school rules. No matter Kururugi's reasons for doing what he did, I have three boys down in the hospital wing sporting some pretty horrific injuries. I have to take action against that. Anything less would be grossly neglecting my duties as head of this institute."

"But..." Lelouch didn't really have an argument anymore, but he stood up. "It's not fair to throw him out, he wouldn't have... it was all _my_ fault!"

Dr Ashford gave a slow, grim nod.

"Be that as it may," he sighed, "I have to do my job."

Lelouch lowered his head for a moment; making up his mind. He didn't like to do it, not after everything that this man had ever done for him and Nunnally, but...

He lifted his head once more, his left eye flaring with Geass; but Dr Ashford was longer in his seat. Instead he had raised himself and moved, drifting towards the window, his back to Lelouch.

Damn, this eye contact thing wasn't going his way today...

"Lelouch, you can leave," Dr Ashford said. "Please tell Kururugi to come back in."

Lelouch floundered, not moving, hoping that the headmaster would turn back to him; but he didn't.

"Dr Ashford," he said finally, thinking that _that_ might make the man look at him.

"Mm?" Dr Ashford hummed, his gaze having drifted out of the window.

Still Lelouch was presented only with his back.

Defeat. He closed his eyes and let the unused Geass fizzle out.

"Just... thankyou," he sighed eventually. "Nunnally and I are indebted to you and your family. No matter what happens, I'll always be grateful for that."

He walked away without waiting for a reply, leaving the office. He found Suzaku out in the corridor, sitting on the nearest windowsill.

"He wants you to go back in," he said stiffly.

Suzaku merely nodded and rose, passing Lelouch wordlessly again. Lelouch wanted to grab at him as he had in the changing room, but something about Suzaku's closeness mingled with his frosty demeanour made him shudder and he didn't touch him. Suzaku closed the office door firmly behind him, leaving Lelouch alone in the hallway.

There was nothing more he could do. There wasn't even much point in him waiting, given that Suzaku probably wouldn't want to talk to him when he emerged, but...

He couldn't bring himself to walk away.

He drifted over to the same windowsill that Suzaku had been sitting on and sank onto it, suddenly feeling very drained. If only he'd known that trying to... well, to _help_ would lead to this, he'd never have... His actions were going to cost Suzaku Ashford Academy, and Suzaku... had seemed so _happy_ here. Where would he go now? Army barracks? Worse?

(_Go back to your ghetto_)

_That_ was what made him angriest. By forcing Suzaku to react against those who tormented him – hating him for his blood, his birth, his race without reason – he had allowed them to win. Suzaku would leave Ashford and Jason Kingsley would be damned proud of himself for it.

He had only just curled up miserably on the windowsill, resting his forehead on his knees, when the door opened again and Suzaku returned. Lelouch hurriedly unfurled himself and stood, but he couldn't bring himself to speak.

"I've been suspended," Suzaku finally said. "For a week, starting tomorrow."

"Sus...?" Lelouch came towards him, hardly daring to believe it. "Not... not expelled?"

Suzaku shook his head. He looked relieved, seeming as though he wanted to smile – although he wouldn't let himself.

"I think he was _going_ to expel me," he said quietly. "Before you came in and then he talked to you privately. What did you say to him?"

"The truth." Lelouch grinned weakly at him. "But don't you _dare_ thank me."

"I wouldn't dream of it." Suzaku's tone was far less teasing than Lelouch's had been when he said it, but his bad mood had eased. It was understandable. Suzaku had probably been even _more_ worried about his fate than Lelouch had been.

...Or perhaps not. No doubt he probably thought that he _deserved_ to be expelled, the masochist...

"I asked Rivalz to pick up our stuff," Lelouch said as they started walking down the wide, empty corridor. "He probably took it up to the Student Council Room."

"Oh." Suzaku nodded. "Yeah. There's a meeting today, right?"

"Yeah. We're meant to be going over the budget for the term. Milly never keeps receipts so the maths was a pain in the—"

"Let's not go."

Lelouch blinked, taken aback by this sudden admission of desire on Suzaku's part. Suzaku missed so many meeting already due to work that he never skipped out on them just because he felt like it. In fact, it was _he_ who often half-carried _Lelouch_ to the room (and was rewarded for his trouble with a bitten finger or two from Arthur upon their arrival).

"I..." Lelouch started a little as Suzaku's hand closed around his wrist for the third time that day. "...Okay."

He didn't let Suzaku pull him so much this time. The Japanese boy still had his hand tightly on his wrist, but they walked level, exactly side-by-side, their footsteps practically in time. How did they look together? Aside from the fact that they were the same gender, they were really rather opposite of one another. Lelouch was taller but far more delicate, pale and pretty with hair like silk. Suzaku was broader in the chest and shoulders, muscles and sinew honed by years of military training, hair thick and naturally wild no matter what he did with it. Their differing nationalities were screamingly obvious, their builds were evidence of their contrary interests and lifestyles, even their _eyes_ were inverted opposites and yet—

(Lelouch caught sight of their reflections in one of the long windows as they passed it)

Somehow they still looked like they belonged together.

Lelouch had no idea where Suzaku was taking them and for the longest time he was kind of under the impression that _Suzaku_ didn't know either; once they were out in the grounds and heading over towards the gym he suddenly felt rather like asking something stupid like "Did you leave something in the changing room?", but he quelled it long enough to be struck with the understanding that they weren't going _into_ the gym, it was more like—

"Oh," he said quietly, "you want to go _there_?"

Suzaku glanced at him.

"Is that okay?"

"...Of course."

As if Suzaku _needed_ his permission. He'd always maintained that the Japanese boy had more of right to be there than _he_ did...

Jason Kingsley and his little gang were sitting on the steps of the gym, muttering amongst themselves. Lelouch was surprised to see them, but he guessed that they must have been treated in the gym's smaller hospital wing; it made sense, since that was where they had been injured and most likely found on the floor, bemoaning the wounds sustained from a completely random and unprovoked attack on their persons by the violent, crazy Eleven.

All five of them looked up on Suzaku and Lelouch's approach; the two uninjured ones rose and obediently backed as far away from Suzaku as the steps they were on would allow. They were closely followed by Jackson – with his nose heavily plastered-over – and the kid with the bandana, who had come off the best with what looked like the beginnings of a pretty nasty black eye. Only Jason Kingsley himself didn't move, although he didn't look too happy to see Suzaku. His arm had apparently been snapped back into place and was now in a sling.

The way they were all looking at Suzaku now... Lelouch smirked. It was _fear_. They probably thought he had come marching over here for Round Two.

Lelouch couldn't help it. He was usually so composed in his dealings with other people, even those he didn't like, but seeing these five like this now, suddenly terrified of the one they had tormented for so long—

"What's wrong, Jason?" he asked, leaning forwards. "I thought you were teaching me a lesson? Don't let Suzaku get to you – really, I'm surprised you let an _Eleven_ interrupt you like that."

"Lelouch!" Suzaku grabbed at his arm and tugged him back. "_Stop_ it."

"Aren't you embarrassed?" Lelouch went on, ignoring Suzaku, straining against his hold on him. "Aren't you humiliated that someone as worthless as Suzaku managed to beat the hell out of you and your friends without even breaking a sweat?"

Jason finally got up, his face white with mingled fear and fury; he did so just as Lelouch almost managed to get out of Suzaku's grip and was grabbed instead around the waist by the bigger boy to restrain him.

"Stop it, Lelouch," Suzaku breathed desperately as Lelouch squirmed in his grasp. "_Please_, just... stop it."

Something about Suzaku's tone – how terribly unhappy he suddenly sounded – made Lelouch stop; he stilled in Suzaku's arms, leaning back into his hold, his head slightly dipped but still watching Jason through his hair.

There was a long moment of silence.

"You two," Jason finally spat (although it was notable that he no longer sounded as confident as he had before), "are going to be seriously fucking sorry that you ever—"

"What?" Lelouch interrupted, half-laughing. "_Existed_?"

He looked up. His eyes met with Jason's. It was all he needed.

"Don't involve yourself with either of us ever again," he commanded calmly.

Jason Kingsley went very still, his eyes wide, as Lelouch's order slipped into him and rewired him; after a long moment he gave a sudden dazed nod, almost _smiled_ at them, and then turned to his friends.

"Let's go," he said, and he abruptly turned and walked away, starting back towards the school. The others – two of them under Geass already anyway – didn't need telling twice, fleeing after him.

Lelouch reasoned that he could get Jackson and bandana-boy at a later date, although he didn't really think that they alone were much of an issue. They were clearly scared of Suzaku now; and, regardless, Jason Kingsley had been the _real_ problem.

Emphasis on '_had_'.

"I... didn't think he would actually leave," Suzaku muttered, sounding perplexed.

Lelouch shrugged in his arms.

"They're terrified of you," he said casually. "They were _looking_ for an excuse to get the hell away from you."

Suzaku merely sighed and didn't say anything; Lelouch finally wriggled out of his grasp and took his hand, pulling at him.

"Come on," he insisted. "Never mind them. You want to go to the shrine, right?"

Suzaku nodded; and let Lelouch lead him down the side of the gym and behind it, their hands locked together the entire time they were fighting their way through undergrowth and ducking beneath overgrown boughs. Upon their emergence into the small enclosed clearing, Suzaku stood at his side for a while, clutching at his hand still – but then he disentangled their fingers and drifted silently away over to the final ivy-laced remnants of what had once been a tiny Shinto shrine.

Even whilst in its former glory (who knew how many years ago), it surely could never have matched up to the size and splendour of the Kururugi Shrine, but that didn't seem to matter to Suzaku as he sank to his knees on the grass and dipped his head.

Lelouch blinked. Was he... _praying_? He'd known that the Shinto faith was in Suzaku's family (obviously), but Suzaku himself had never struck him as particularly religious. He didn't think he had ever seen him praying before.

Still, as bewildered as he was, it also made him smile. Shinto was something that was purely Japanese. The fact that Suzaku had wanted to come here, had wanted to come to the one place where he could immerse himself in a practice from his own actual heritage as opposed to his adopted one... While Suzaku never defended the fact that he was Japanese, _this_ meant that he did not reject it, either.

Okay, so it wasn't quite on par with Suzaku telling the Britannian Army where to get off and instead swearing his allegiance to the Black Knights, but it wasn't a bad start. No matter what C.C. said about him using the bid for Japan's freedom as nothing more than a scapegoat to acquire an army of his own, Lelouch _did_ believe that all of the numbered territories should get their names and identities back. It wasn't right to take away someone's nationality and replace it with a four or an eight or an _eleven_...

Lelouch got the impression that Suzaku wanted to be left alone at this precise moment and didn't follow him, instead going over to the weeping willow and sinking to the ground, sitting back against it in the largest patch of mottled late-afternoon sun that he could find. He closed his eyes and exhaled deeply, thinking that, all-in-all, in the end everything had turned out pretty well...

He might have dozed off, but he felt Suzaku settling next to him what seemed like barely a minute later; he opened his eyes a little and looked at the other boy.

"Were you praying for forgiveness?" he asked lazily.

"No," Suzaku replied. "It was... more like a ritual. Well. Sort of." He shrugged. "I don't know. I just wanted..."

"Good." Lelouch walked his fingers over to Suzaku's hand and caught it up, lacing their fingers together. "You don't have to explain yourself. Don't be ashamed of it."

Suzaku was quiet for a moment; Lelouch took the opportunity to lean against him.

"I'm not ashamed," the Japanese boy replied softly.

"It's just that it's easier to pretend that you are, right?" Lelouch murmured, saying it against Suzaku's neck.

"Lelouch, don't make me pissed off at you again."

"Oh, you were?"

"Very."

Lelouch laughed and nuzzled against him.

"I know."

There was another long bout of silence.

"They... really _were_ afraid of me, weren't they?" Suzaku asked finally.

Lelouch gave a grave nod, his hair brushing against Suzaku's throat.

"I don't think they'll bother you again," he said in a low voice.

"It's not _me_ that I'm worried about," Suzaku replied. "Are you... I mean, did they hurt you?"

"A little, but it's nothing serious. And you _more_ than paid them back in kind for it, so don't concern yourself."

"I..." Lelouch felt Suzaku's grasp on his hand tighten. "I only flipped out because... because I saw what Jason was _about_ to do to you."

"Oh, he was being idiotic," Lelouch sighed agreeably. "As if he'd have gotten away with it. _He'd_ have been the one expelled if he'd gone through with it."

"Lelouch, he _was_ going to go through with it – or, at least, that's what it looked like from where I was standing."

"I know." Lelouch leaned up and planted a little kiss of thanks on Suzaku's jaw, but the Japanese boy didn't react.

"And _you_..." He almost sighed it. "You were _laughing_."

Lelouch smiled.

"That's because I realised something," he said. "When they had me pinned there and Jason was hurting me, they called it "teaching me a lesson"... Suzaku, they were afraid _before_ you even laid a hand on them. Britannia is afraid of change – that's why, whenever they take over another country, they crush its culture and its language and even its _name_. They're afraid of Japanese customs mixing with Britannian ones, or of the Arabic language merging with English. Calling you by a number, treating you as if you're worthless... that's their security. People like Jason Kingsley have been taught to harbour that fear, even if they don't realise that that's what it is – it's rather cleverly disguised as "superiority". What they were trying to teach me was not that I'm better than you, but that I was wrong to not be afraid of you, to _hate_ you, because you're not Britannian."

"So..." Suzaku looked down at their interlinked hands. "...What about _this_?"

"This?" Lelouch looked at their hands himself. "_This_ is their worst fear. This is proof that there is no reason for the hatred between Japanese and Britannians. You and I are the beginning of the merging process. When you make love to me and get so worked up that you can't even speak English anymore..."

He put his other hand to Suzaku's face and smiled at him a moment longer before pulling him into a hard, deep kiss.

"The world will change," he breathed against Suzaku's mouth on breaking from him, "starting with you and I, Suzaku."

* * *

How much time had passed since then?

Over a year, but not quite two. It seemed longer. It seemed like it had been something like a decade ago, both of them _feeling_ as if they had aged ten years or so since then, but really...

They'd both been seventeen when it had started. Now Lelouch was almost nineteen – but not quite. He felt far older, but perhaps he was getting to be like C.C. in that respect, owning a wisdom not usually granted to someone little more than a child in body.

Not that his age was what he was thinking about right now. It was very late, and the two of them had retired to their chamber for the night. Locked up away out of sight (just as _Suzaku_ had to be these days, following his "death"), Lelouch was finally able to drop the pretence. He had shed the heavy, ornate skin of Britannia's 99th Emperor and slipped instead into some of Suzaku's clothes, worn combat trousers and plain black hooded sweatshirt loose and warm and comfortable on his thin, boyish frame.

He stood in the doorway of the bedroom, leaning against the doorframe with the sword in his hands, watching Suzaku in silence.

The Japanese boy – his knight all but officially now – was standing before the full-length mirror in their room, completely still, just staring himself down. It was the first time he had ever worn Zero's outfit and he didn't appear to be all that happy about it. Still, Lelouch had to be precise about it, just as he was about everything; he wanted to be sure that the thing fitted Suzaku properly and that he could move in it.

After all, it hadn't been made for him originally.

Suzaku noticed Lelouch in the reflection of the mirror and turned to him; he opened his mouth to speak, but on seeing the sword, he promptly shut it again.

"This is your new one," Lelouch said, finally speaking himself. He stepped into the room and crossed to the bed to lay the sword – Zero's sword, never drawn by the original – down upon the sheets.

Suzaku's other sword, the one he had held in Lelouch's defence as the Knight of Zero, was already there. Lelouch put the new sword down next to it, lining them up exactly side-by-side.

Suzaku said nothing. Straightening, quiet himself, Lelouch understood why. There was only one reason why Zero would need a sword now; _that_ much he knew just as well as he did that the next time he touched Zero's sword, it wouldn't be with his hands.

He looked at Suzaku again, but the other boy had finally turned away once more, turning his gaze back on his reflection.

"Well?" Lelouch sighed, approaching him.

"Well what?" Suzaku asked in a low voice.

"What do you think?" Lelouch pressed, stopping behind his best friend and ghosting his hands over his shoulders, now weighed down with the heavy material of the cloak.

"You know what I think."

"I..." Lelouch huffed. "Hey, turn around. Let me see you."

"You can see me in the mirror."

"_Suzaku_."

Suzaku obediently turned to him, his expression sullen; Lelouch gave a little tug to the collar of the cloak to straighten it and tucked the cravat in properly. It was more a habit now than anything else, making Suzaku look just that little bit more presentable.

"Is it comfortable?" he asked. "We can adjust it if it isn't. We still have a few days before the Zero Requiem – your _debut_, shall we say?"

Suzaku again said nothing for a very long time.

"The... chest is a little bit tight," he said finally, his voice very low. "And across the shoulders and back."

"That makes sense. You're a lot broader than I am. Anywhere else?"

"No, everything else is fine."

"Where's the mask?"

"On the dresser. I already tried it. It's fine."

Suzaku said it very woodenly and Lelouch gave another small sigh. It was perfectly understandable. Suzaku had agreed to the Zero Requiem but of course he wasn't happy about it. Neither was Lelouch, naturally, but...

Well, he really couldn't think of another solution that would lend itself to his desired outcome. It was true that Nunnally had been of the mind to make the Damocles Fortress, equipped with FLEIJA, the same kind of hatred symbol, but it wasn't as easy to hate a building or a weapon or _even_ a symbol as it was to hate a person.

Suzaku understood that too. Euphemia had been proof enough of that. That was why he had agreed to the plan, no matter how much he detested it. With his own memory already laid to rest, he understood that the both of them – the Demon Emperor and the Traitor Knight – had to die in order to facilitate peace.

Lelouch leaned against Suzaku, resting his head on the Japanese boy's shoulder. Suzaku hesitated, then finally wrapped his arms around the young emperor's small waist and held him closer still. Lelouch gave an experimental squirm and found that he couldn't move very much; he smiled. He admitted that he liked it, and always had, when Suzaku held him around the waist, because there was something possessive about the innocent gesture.

He knew why Suzaku was holding him so tightly, though. They didn't have much longer left together, and although Lelouch knew, because of the one tiny little mark on his wrist, that he would not die for good, it was not a knowledge shared by Suzaku – and even if it _had_ been, there was no way they could stay together regardless. After he (hopefully) revived, Lelouch was going to leave with C.C. and it was highly likely that he would never see Suzaku again.

It was also highly likely, he knew, that he would never love and know anyone quite as much or as well as he did Suzaku Kururugi. He trusted C.C. as he did Suzaku, but he could never know her as he knew the boy who was his knight and lover and best friend. He was able to decipher what Suzaku was thinking just by looked at his expression, he knew every slight nuance or quirk in his behaviour, he knew everything he liked and disliked regarding matters superficial to physical.

For example, just as _he_ liked it when Suzaku put his hands on his waist, he knew that Suzaku went weak at the knees when Lelouch himself whispered in his ear. It didn't seem to matter what he said – it was more the action itself, as though his words were yet another secret to be shared between them.

So he lifted his head now and put his lips to Suzaku's ear, nipping at his lobe a little first to make him jump.

"Hey," he whispered, "I want to confess something."

"Like what?" Suzaku breathed, half-heartedly trying to pull his head away from where Lelouch was nibbling at the shell of his ear.

"Remember that time with Jason Kingsley? You know how he never spoke to you again after that? I used Geass on him." Lelouch gave an odd little giggle and nuzzled against Suzaku's throat.

Suzaku was silent for a moment.

"I figured that out myself," he said at length. "Once I knew about your Geass... it was kind of obvious."

"Oh? You never mentioned it."

"You know I don't like talking about your Geass. It's something that I really don't want to have anything to do with, Lelouch."

"Even though you're still under it?"

"Geass in general," Suzaku said in a hard voice; and it was clear that their moment of teasing one another's weak spots was over. Suzaku unwound his arms from Lelouch's waist and pushed him firmly away.

Lelouch said nothing, only making sure to tug the sleeve of Suzaku's hoodie further down over his wrist; watching Suzaku, in that over-the-top mock-Britannian garb, go to the bed to look at the brand new sword Lelouch had brought for him.

"There's a belt with a scabbard attached," Lelouch said idly, moving himself towards the dresser to pick up Zero's heavy mask. "I didn't bring it up. I just thought you might want to see the sword."

Suzaku had gone silent again. Carrying the mask in both hands, Lelouch came back to join him before the bed, standing at his side just as the two swords lay next to each other.

"It looks like an eleven," Lelouch observed finally.

Suzaku's jade eyes slid towards him very briefly, but still he said nothing.

"I've always liked the number eleven," Lelouch went on conversationally despite the fact that Suzaku wasn't answering him.

(But...)

"Why?" Suzaku suddenly asked, his tone sharp. "Because that's what they called the Japanese? Because you were Britannia's eleventh prince?"

"Neither," Lelouch replied. "I like how it looks – because it looks like two people standing side-by-side no matter what happens. An emperor and his knight, or... simply two friends."

Taking the mask in one hand, he reached down and felt for Suzaku's with his other. The Japanese boy had his clenched tightly, and it was a long, tense moment before he finally unfurled his fingers and allowed Lelouch to slip his spindle-like ones between them.

"You know what else I like about the number eleven, Suzaku?" Lelouch asked, lowering his voice again as he looked at himself, sickly-looking and ghostly, in the mirrored visor of Zero's mask.

"What?" Suzaku inquired dully, his own voice barely audible; his hand tightened around Lelouch's.

"I like that there's an empty space in-between, where there's absolutely nothing," Lelouch said, and he bent slightly and put the mask down in the gap between the two swords. "_Zero_."

* * *

SO. That's that. I wanted to do more with Jason Kingsley and the whole racism issue that really does seem to be far more prominent in R1. Hope you enjoyed it. I am aware that it was far-fetched and OTT just like my other full-flashbacks (for some reason they seem to take on a slightly-less-believable tone than the regular chapters), but if you'd be so kind as to suspend your disbelief a little, I hope you enjoyed the _message_ of this chapter.

Factoid One: Lelouch is taller than Suzaku. Really, he is. By, like, an inch or something, but according to official stats, he is the taller of the two of them. I know – I am surprised too. O.o

Factoid Two: The line I said about them having "inverted eyes". This is lame, but if you get a picture of them both and invert the colours on Paint or whatever, Suzaku's eyes go purple and Lelouch's go green. PROOF that they are meant for each other. (Or proof that I need to do something more constructive with my time.)

The title of this chapter is part of a line by William Shakespeare from _Romeo and Juliet_, "A plague on both your houses!" – you may recall Lelouch quoting it in Ch 6. It is spoken originally by the lovely, lovely Mercutio. =) The quote in square brackets is also from _Romeo and Juliet_; the first lines of the play, in fact.

You know, I think I meant to say about a million other things about this chapter and will probably remember them after I've posted it, and but blah... It is almost 4:30am as I write this and I haven't slept much this week because I had four essays to write. And here I thought that the US university system didn't do the whole piling-everything-on-in-the-last-two-weeks-of-the-term thing that the UK one does...

Lastly, I know this is belated, but I hope everyone had a wonderful Halloween! Narroch and I went to YaoiCon, as you all know, and it was really fun! Okay, so it had a few moments of weirdness (what con doesn't? o.O) like the Bishounen Auction, which was people bidding WITH REAL MONEY on guys dressed up as their favourite characters. I mean, the money went to charity and everything, which is great, but there's something a little weird about some crazy girl spending $850 for three hours of a guy dressed as Lestat's time, you know?

(Yes, $850. You read that right.)

Some of the panels were great, though, and the dealer's rooms were awesome and the skits were good and it was overall just a really cool experience. I am kind of new to the con thing since they're pretty scarce in Britain, so I really enjoyed most of it. Even the incident with the "con creeper" turned out to be hysterically funny and altogether pretty entertaining in the end...

Also, I discovered that cosplaying goes through trends just like fashion does! The last con I went to, it was _Death Note_ and _Naruto_ everywhere. I am aware that there was a _Haruhi Suzumiya_ craze last year. As for this year (at YaoiCon, at least), I think it would be a pretty safe bet to say that the current trends are _Kuroshitsuji_ (So. Many. _Ciels_.) and _Hetalia: Axis Powers_. Despite the fact that I owe YaoiCon my kind-of-introduction to the latter (and my grudging liking of it), I still find the fact that people dress up as freaking _Sealand_ hilarious...

There weren't many _Code Geass_ cosplayers, but I did get an awesome Japanese-style fan with Lelouch and Suzaku on it. Its prettiness kept Narroch and I entertained throughout the few panels that sounded more interesting than they actually were...

Gah, so, yeah, thanks for reading! Hope you enjoyed it!

RR xXx

P.S: I'd be more inclined to wish Lelouch a happy birthday if he hadn't stolen _my_ birthday thunder. AutumnDynasty, I'm _so_ glad you prioritise...


	12. Dead Red Thread

**I DON'T WANT TO HEAR IT.**

(In all seriousness, my most sincere and grovelling apologies can be found down at the bottom~)

The Ghost in the Machine

XII – Dead Red Thread

An eternity had stretched between that kiss; an eternity and an entire world and an entity made up of their minds, however briefly, becoming one.

In the midst of that static sea and that bed and that vast chessboard Lelouch had offered him the crown he had once worn himself.

The Power of Kings.

Geass.

(Which he still despised.)

—

_["I accept. I'm your knight. Your knight, always your knight, I'll do anything you ask of me. That's why I accept."_

"_Mmm," Lelouch hummed musically. His fingers were cold and slender, pressed to Suzaku's cheek to hold his head still; those of his other hand were firm on the straight silver needle. His gaze was intense, concentrated on his task._

_The insignia on his forehead – Suzaku seeing it through the silken strands of his hair__– was stitched into his skin in crimson thread; remarkable craftsmanship, neat stitches and perfect, even shape. He must have done it himself, because he was a perfectionist like that. Backwards before the mirror with his needle and his thread, meticulous in making a monster and a mockery of himself._

_And now he had turned his (witch)craft on Suzaku. In a realm like this, it did not hurt, but there was blood – although he was not sure if the thread had already been red beforehand. Lelouch knelt before him, tender but firm in holding him perfectly still, thumb tight beneath his jaw, and painstakingly sewed Geass into his left eye, the thread long and tangled, caught up around them both so that they might not separate even if they wanted to._

_And even __**if**__ they did, it was too late._

"_I accept," Suzaku breathed as the needle slid through the skin around his eye socket again, pulling the thread through after it, blood welling from the fresh pinhole and sliding over his cheek more deliberately – hotter, thicker, of far more substance – than a tear._

_Lelouch, dead red thread wrapped around his fingers, knotted firmly about the smallest (like the strings to a puppet), smiled and leaned in to kiss his newest stitches._

"_Of course you do, Suzaku," he replied.]_

—

Suzaku broke the kiss and opened his eyes. It couldn't have lasted more than a few seconds. _Couldn't_ have.

He sat up on Lelouch, hand flying immediately, almost unconsciously, to his left eye – as though feeling for the slickness of blood, the unevenness of stitches. Nothing but the smooth stretch of his skin over his cheekbone.

Beneath him, still flat on his back on the floor, Lelouch opened his own eyes very slowly. He looked up at Suzaku in silence, his black hair flared out on the filthy floor behind his head.

"Is... is it done?" Suzaku finally forced himself to ask, fingers still tracing over his eye socket.

Lelouch seemed to hesitate.

"I... would assume so," he replied quietly. "I mean, I said you were my first, so I've never... well, I've never given anybody Geass before, but you... _accepted_ it, finally, so... yes, I suppose... it _must_ be done." He gave a nod, apparently trying to sound more confident than he actually was. "Yes. You have Geass, Suzaku."

Suzaku sighed and tipped his head back, looking at the ceiling. His left eye didn't feel any different. He didn't know quite what he'd been expecting, other than the fact that he _had_ been expecting _something_, something evident of the rewiring, of the new system integrated into his skull behind the green-glass window of his left eye.

(Every time the Lancelot had been upgraded, he had felt it. Felt the subtle differences in the resonations, in the thrum of the great machine's heartbeat. He had listened and he had heard. Beneath his hands he had observed the ever-so-slight shifts and nuances of different machinery working in a different way – subtle, barely-there changes, like the new skin of scar tissue.

—So why not now?)

"I can't feel it," he said hollowly.

"That is perfectly normal," Lelouch replied patiently. "You can trust me on that one."

"So how do I know? How do I know how to use it? How do I even know that it's there?"

"I..." Lelouch bit at his lip frustratedly. "I can't explain... I mean, how you use it is just... it comes naturally. There's no method, it's just... _there_," he finished lamely.

Suzaku was almost amused. He hadn't seen Lelouch so inarticulate for a long time.

"What power did you give me?" he pressed, though he had a feeling that Lelouch wouldn't be able to answer that either.

As he'd expected, Lelouch shook his head.

"I don't know," he said. "Geass manifests itself differently within different people. It is unlikely to be the same power as I had, for example."

"I need a mirror, then," Suzaku said absently, and he finally rose, lifting his weight from Lelouch's body.

"...A mirror?" Lelouch sat up at long last, frowning. "What do you...?" He blinked, trailing off once more as Suzaku drifted away. "No... No, wait, Suzaku-!"

Suzaku heard Lelouch scrambling to his feet, heavy material of his clothing swishing and chains clinking and clattering. He paused on the threshold of the battered sliding door leading out into the main shrine, his (unaltered) gaze trained on the dirty floor.

"What?" he asked quietly.

(But he knew. He had never been like Lelouch, able to read people and predict their next five, six, seven actions, but he _knew_ Lelouch very well. He knew exactly what he was going to say.)

"You _mustn't_ test it on yourself," Lelouch said firmly. "You have no idea what it does—"

"Oh, so I expect you want me to test it on someone else?" Suzaku snapped, looking sharply over his shoulder at glare at him.

Lelouch didn't flinch but he did hunch his shoulders somewhat defensively, casting his gaze aside.

"That's... that's not..."

"Not what you meant?" Suzaku gave an impatient sigh. "Lelouch, it's either one or the other, and you _don't_ want me to test it on myself—"

"Of course not!" Lelouch raised his eyes again; they were very bright and sort of... _defiant_. "That's... that's unbelievably stupid and reckless and... and _idiotic_, I mean, you have no idea what it does, think what you could do to yourself!"

"But isn't it better to test it on myself to know what it does before I start using it on other people?" Suzaku argued. "Think what I could do to someone _else_!"

Lelouch opened his mouth; but didn't seem to have a reply. Instead he sank his teeth into his bottom lip, worrying at it distractedly.

"Of course," Suzaku went on coldly, unable to stop himself (because it was _true_), "I'm not surprised that _you_ tried it on someone else first."

"That's—!" Lelouch cut himself off with an angry sigh, appearing insulted. "I didn't have a choice! When C.C. gave me Geass, I was being held at gunpoint by the same group of soldiers that shot you! What else was I supposed to do, excuse myself to go find the nearest shiny surface so I could make sure I wouldn't hurt any of them?"

"I appreciate that," Suzaku bit out, "but that was a completely different situation to this. I'm not being held at gunpoint, Lelouch. I'd much rather know—"

"Don't be so idiotic! Geass is dangerous. Not all examples of Geass can be used on oneself without serious consequences. Mine... mine was okay to use on myself that time we were rescuing Nunnally from Mao but can you imagine if either my mother or father had used _their_ Geass on themselves? I gave you Geass because I need your help – I can't afford to have you... _maiming_ yourself with it before we've even begun." Lelouch paused, giving Suzaku a chance to interject if he wanted to; but Suzaku remained silent, not having an answer. "Besides, I didn't even _give_ you the damned Geass for you to use it! I gave it to you so that you'll make up the other half of the needed data to achieve Code Geass so we can get through the Gate. It's just fine if... if you _never_ use it, Suzaku. Really it is."

Suzaku looked at Lelouch for a long moment, meeting his eyes; the immortal boy's gaze was so intense that it was almost unsettling. He didn't like to fold so easily over something that he really felt rather strongly about but he couldn't help but admit (inwardly) that Lelouch did have a point. Who said that Suzaku ever had to use the damned thing? It was all just a means to an end... right?

"Okay," he muttered grudgingly after a long moment. "You win. _Again_."

Lelouch wasn't satisfied.

"Promise," he demanded.

Suzaku blinked at him, somewhat irritated by the petulant tone and overall childishness of the request.

"Excuse me?"

"I said promise," Lelouch repeated firmly. "Promise me you won't try it on yourself. I know what you're like, Suzaku, but this really isn't something to be noble and self-sacrificing over. If nothing else, I need you in one piece, shall we say?"

"And that's your only reason?" Suzaku retorted waspishly.

"You know it isn't, but it _is_ an important one nonetheless. I wouldn't have even considered making a contract with you otherwise."

Suzaku gave a sharp nod of acknowledgement to that but his jade eyes narrowed nonetheless.

"Still, I don't see why I should have to keep my word to you when _you're_ such a liar," he said stiffly.

"I might be a liar but you're not, Suzaku." Lelouch met and countered the "insult" with nothing but an icy smile, tilting his head. "So I expect you to keep your word." He held out his hand as though for a formal handshake. "So... Promise?"

Suzaku looked at his hand, at his slender fingers and the gentle creases in his palm, for another long, hesitant moment; he felt like taking Lelouch's hand would be something akin to making a deal with the devil (even though he'd _already_ signed away his soul to him, years ago)—

"Alright," he sighed defeatedly, pressing his palm against Lelouch's in a resentful handshake. "I promise."

His gaze was fixated on the slow up-and-down rock of their clasped hands as they shook; but when it ceased to be an ironic handshake and instead _just_ a clasp of hands again, he looked up at Lelouch himself. Lelouch, in his black prisoner's outfit, chains clinking and the buckle of the collar sitting loosely about his throat glinting, slivers of the crimson mark of Geass visible on his forehead through his fine fringe.

Every inch a prisoner.

Of course, the clothing was superficial. It could be taken off – Lelouch was wearing it only because either he liked the fit of it on his twig-thin frame better than he did that of Suzaku's clothes or for the sake of mere irony, much as C.C. had. Either way, those chains and collars and clasps and straps, hanging loose as a fugitive's fashion statement, were symbolic of an imprisonment that couldn't be shed with the ease of clothing, the proof of it etched onto his forehead for all to see. Lelouch might have traded in his overly-dramatic cape or fancy white and gold robes for something little more than a straightjacket only recently but he had been Geass' captive for years.

And now Suzaku had given himself over to exactly the same fate.

"Thankyou," Lelouch said (either primly or curtly, Suzaku couldn't be entirely sure which), and he took his hand back and was gone, vanishing back into the main room of the shrine like some awful oversized black moth.

Suzaku watched him, following him at a much slower pace, his own heart suddenly heavy in his chest. He knew Lelouch had only thanked him for his compliance out of sheer (somewhat-feigned) politeness; that, really, he had expected him to agree to his terms regardless.

No, not even expected. He had _known_ that he would.

Suzaku paused just over the threshold of the main room; Lelouch was flitting about restlessly, glancing around as though properly assessing the damage to the room for the first time. He glanced at Suzaku, observing him hovering.

"We're going to need to make preparations, you understand," he said, all-business.

Suzaku nodded numbly.

"Do you know how to find Kallen?"

"Uh..." The question caught him somewhat off-guard. "Not, I mean... not off the top of my head."

"So you don't know where she is?" Lelouch's violet eyes had narrowed suspiciously.

"Ah, well, no, but..." Suzaku clenched and unclenched his fists a few times. "We can find her using the online census database for the Tokyo settlement. Her name is Kozuki now, right?"

"Online census database?" Lelouch repeated coolly; he gestured around the ruined room. "Somehow I don't think this place has internet access, Suzaku."

"Well, we'll... we'll go to an internet cafe or something then."

"As of less than twenty-four hours ago," Lelouch replied curtly, seeming as though he was trying to be patient, "we are now _fugitives_. We can't just waltz into an internet cafe—"

"What do you _want_ me to suggest?" Suzaku snapped, not letting him finish.

"I don't..." Lelouch turned away frustratedly. "I assumed you'd know where to find her, to be perfectly honest."

"Well, I don't, so too bad."

"Suzaku, don't _speak_ to me like that," Lelouch bit out over his shoulder.

"How about _you_ don't speak to _me_ like that?" Suzaku replied sharply, closing the gap between them in a few strides. "You can't... can't just come back here and assume—"

"Well, I _did_ assume," Lelouch snapped, seeming to lose his patience entirely. "I assumed that after everything three years ago, after you fought Kallen that last time and therefore came to owe her your "death"... that you'd, well, perhaps monitor her. It would have been in your interest to, Suzaku."

"Look," Suzaku replied hotly, "I admit I _should_ have known that you'd come swanning back after so many years of pretending to be dead because, hey, that wouldn't be anything new for you but I _didn't_ so I sure as hell didn't expect you to come back _and_ demand that I tell you where Kallen is!"

"This has nothing to do with me!" Lelouch seethed. "I know Kallen well – she isn't stupid, it wouldn't surprise me if she never really believed that you were dead. She saw Zero kill me that day perhaps clearer than anyone. In the interest of your secret identity, I _had_ hoped you might make rather more effort to ensure that there were no loose ends that could compromise the ongoing success of the Zero Requiem."

"Well..." Suzaku trailed off lamely; he was very angry at Lelouch for turning up like a ghost and berating him for this, that and the other but he couldn't fail to admit that actually, now that he thought about it, Lelouch sort of had a point.

Not that he expected Kallen to come looking for him – and she _hadn't_, obviously – but, yes, she wasn't stupid. Not at all. She'd probably known all along that it had been Suzaku Kururugi underneath that mask that day and it really _would_ have been in his interest to at least have made a note to himself of her current whereabouts.

Lelouch seemed to see that Suzaku had been subdued by his sharp words and looked aside himself.

"I don't want to argue with you, Suzaku," he said in a low voice. "I am simply disappointed."

"But there's always so much to argue about, isn't there, Lelouch?" Suzaku sighed. He turned away from Lelouch and flopped onto the bedding roll, sprawling rather ungracefully on it like broken doll. "You and I think completely differently. You're... you're so meticulous, you always catch every tiny detail like that and I just..." He gave a frustrated sigh. "...I just _don't_ think. At all."

"You just go charging in," Lelouch agreed mildly, sinking to the bedding roll himself and kneeling next to Suzaku's carelessly-prostrate form with rather more ceremony. "Well, I suppose you've always been like that – and I think that's what makes us a good team, you know."

"Brains and brawn, you mean," Suzaku supplied tonelessly.

"Perhaps." Lelouch leaned over him; the motion made Suzaku look up and meet his gaze. "And they _do_ say that opposites attract, after all."

Despite himself, Suzaku couldn't help smiling up at him when he said that.

"Yeah," he murmured, shifting a little on the bedding roll. He reached up for Lelouch's hand, blindly securing it in his. "There _is_ that..." He pulled Lelouch's hand up to his face and pressed it against his cheek. "...God, I missed you. You have no idea."

"Yes, I do," Lelouch replied quietly. "I missed you too, Suzaku." He laughed a little. "Three years of only C.C. for company? Hell, I even missed _Milly_."

Suzaku smiled and shook his head.

"She's _never_ been in your good books, has she?"

Lelouch gave a snort and lay down on the bedding roll next to Suzaku.

"Of course not," he said. "She went out of her way to personally make my life a living hell back at Ashford Academy."

"Yeah," Suzaku sighed in agreement. He couldn't exactly argue with it, admittedly. He paused for a long moment. "She... she knew, you know."

"Knew what?" Lelouch asked blandly, exhaling deeply and blinking up at the ceiling.

"About us."

"Oh. Yes." Lelouch smirked briefly. "I know. I always knew you'd never be able to keep it _all_ to yourself – I thought you might tell someone. Frankly, however, I was banking on Rivalz."

"I didn't tell her!" Suzaku cried, turning his head at glare at Lelouch. "As if I'd have jeopardised... well, _everything_; I mean, there was your identity to consider, and Nunnally's too, and besides, Milly just—"

"Then she worked it out on her own," Lelouch cut in calmly, "and she did it via you because I _know_ she didn't decipher it through _me_, you airhead."

"Oh yeah?" Suzaku asked sarcastically. "Actually, it was because of all the lovebites and scratch-marks."

Lelouch snorted.

"There were no such things and you know it," he said carefully. "I wasn't so stupid as to forget that we had gym class, idiot."

"Well, you _did_ bite sometimes, even so," Suzaku said defensively, refusing to back down. "And scratched, too!"

Lelouch turned his head to meet his gaze, grinning.

"I still do," he said in a low voice.

Suzaku shook his head at him.

"Oh, stop it," he sighed, looking up at the ceiling himself. "That's not... not something I want to think about right now when I... well..." He shifted uncomfortably. "...Um, well, earlier..."

"It's alright." Lelouch, too, looked back up at the ceiling, probably examining the same persistent string of ivy weaving across it like the scar of a river in a desert that Suzaku was. "It was novel, if nothing else. I'm glad you've gotten a bit of imagination about you, at any rate."

"You always pick the oddest times to compliment me," Suzaku said, "and the oddest reasons, too."

"No, I mean it. The Suzaku Kururugi of four years ago could never have agreed with anything like the Zero Requiem, could never have believed in the World of C or... or even that a world full of pain is better simply because it's real. I've always felt that one needs a little bit of imagination to get anything out of life."

"Then I owe my life to you," Suzaku said truthfully. "That first summer... being with you and Nunnally, finally having friends, people to play with and laugh with and talk with – you created me that summer, Lelouch."

"Oh, I don't know." Lelouch unlocked their hands and instead sought out Suzaku's little finger, linking his own with it. "You were far from an empty shell – you were just too far inside it. I remember some of the old Japanese stories you told Nunnally and I, tales about Amaterasu, about the kappa in the rivers, about the red thread that links soul-mates."

"By the little finger," Suzaku finished quietly, hooking his and giving Lelouch's a tiny tug.

"Mm." Lelouch smiled and was silent for a long moment.

So they lay side by side on the bedding roll, pinkies intertwined; two straight lines like the number eleven. There was total quiet between them and it was gentle and content, seeping into Suzaku and silencing him with solace.

It would be alright.

"I missed you," he whispered again.

"I missed you too," Lelouch replied gently.

"I thought I would never see you again."

"You weren't supposed to. You were supposed to live and grow old and forget about me."

"How could I?"

"I don't know. Somehow."

"You're always so selfish," Suzaku sighed.

"I know." Lelouch gave a small shake of his head. "I'm sorry. I thought... that it would be for the best. I think sometimes it takes a little imagination to see that you're wrong, too."

There was another bout of silence between them. Suzaku listened to Lelouch breathe for a while and wondered if he even really still needed air. It was an interesting thought – albeit a useless one that resolved none of their problems.

"So," he began again at length, his voice a little more awkward this time, "uh, what... what about Kallen?"

Lelouch rolled onto his side, little finger still linked with Suzaku's, and smiled at him.

"Oh, Suzaku," he murmured, "use your imagination."

* * *

"This is old-fashioned."

"I'm _not_ using my Geass, Lelouch."

"I'm not suggesting that you use your Geass," Lelouch grumbled. "I'm just saying that this is old-fashioned. This is _movie_ old-fashioned." He huffed as they stopped at the edge of a corner in the dark, deserted public library building, Suzaku holding him back with one arm flung out across his chest. "I mean—"

"Lelouch," Suzaku hissed irritably, "shut _up_ for a moment!"

He could practically _hear_ Lelouch roll his eyes behind him and huffed inwardly himself. He hadn't wanted to bring him – God knew Lelouch was absolutely the last person to have with you on a middle-of-the-night break-in operation, the kind that involved running and hiding and then running again. Still, Suzaku hadn't wanted to leave Lelouch alone at the shrine, given that they were fugitives on the run and Lelouch was, as before, not all that great at running; and with his Geass (the only weapon he'd ever had) long gone, Suzaku was really his only protection against being captured again. The lesser of two evils, then, was to keep Lelouch with him.

Even though he complained. And argued. And slowed them down.

There was a sound beyond the corner and Suzaku flattened himself against the wall, pushing Lelouch backwards a pace. Lelouch obediently stilled and Suzaku waited a breath or two before daring to inch forward and peek around the corner. He gave an inward groan. _Another_ security guard.

He dug up one of their old sign-language signals, motioning to Lelouch behind his back to wait here, before slipping around the edge of the corner and following the shape of the shadows along the corridor until he was behind the security guard, who was gazing blankly, absently, at the decorated ceiling of the library's hallway.

Suzaku silently lifted his arm and brought the edge of his hand down precisely against the curve of the guard's shoulder, striking the spot perfectly; the man gave an odd gurgling sound and crumpled, Suzaku catching him and lying him down on the corridor floor more gently. He straightened, glancing up and down the hallway to check that it was safe, before motioning to Lelouch, who was peeking around the corner at him.

Lelouch slinked out of the shadows like a cat and came drifting, shuffling, clinking, towards Suzaku as lazily as always.

"Admit it," he drawled. "Todou taught you to be a ninja."

"Don't be stupid," Suzaku said curtly, grabbing Lelouch by the wrist. "Come on, let's get to the computer suite. I'm tired of knocking out the security."

"I can imagine," Lelouch replied, carefully picking his way around the guard. "Doesn't this make eight?"

"Seven." Suzaku gave a shake of his head as he pulled Lelouch along. "Honestly, all this for a computer..."

"If you knew where Kallen was, we wouldn't need to be re-enacting a bad ninja movie," Lelouch pointed out in a low voice.

"Shut up, Lelouch."

Suzaku was good on his word, holding back as another guard passed them two hallways later to avoid having to make it eight; the computer suite lay ahead, the lines of machines glowing like sleeping ghosts beyond the glass wall. There was no door to the computer suite, just an open walkway cut into the glass, which thankfully meant no locking-picking or, worse, glass-breaking.

Suzaku checked the corridor again before pushing Lelouch on ahead of him towards the suite and through the doorway; Lelouch immediately veered off to the left and made for the computer tucked into the furthest corner, Suzaku close at his heels.

"Is there a password?" Suzaku hissed as Lelouch sat down and tapped one of the keys on the keyboard, awakening the computer.

"Yes," Lelouch muttered, leaning forward and beginning to type. "No matter, I can hack it." He paused, briefly, to turn and smirk at Suzaku. "Now aren't you glad you brought me? This is hardly your forte."

"Get on with it," Suzaku said dismissively, glancing around. "This place is still crawling with guards."

Lelouch gave a snort but resumed typing, bringing up box upon box of jumbled symbols and network codes. It was all double-Dutch to Suzaku and he supposed it _was_ a good thing that he'd brought Lelouch with him – even though he was loathe to admit it right now. Lelouch could gloat later...

"Honestly, though," Lelouch muttered over the tapping of the keys, "I never knew this library had this much security at night."

"It's because there are some one-of-a-kind books in here," Suzaku answered absently. "That is, they're the only ones left – Japanese books, I mean. Britannia had a lot of the old Japanese literature destroyed when they took over so some of the books here are really rare now."

"So shouldn't they be in a museum?"

Suzaku shrugged.

"Well," he said, "I guess maybe this _is_ kind of a little museum for them. They have their own section on the fifth floor and you can go up and look at them at certain times if you want to."

"And now," said a cool voice behind him, "is not one of those times, gentlemen."

Suzaku froze; he heard the click of a gun behind him and knew that now, with the weapon already cocked, he wouldn't be able to turn and knock the gun of the guard's hand without the danger of getting shot.

"Hands in the air," the security guard ordered. "Both of you, please – and do it quick."

Seething, Suzaku obeyed; damn, that one guard he hadn't slammed face-first into the ground had probably heard them or seen them or both and had followed them in here – and Suzaku had been so distracted bantering with Lelouch that he hadn't noticed.

Lelouch himself, however, was less obedient; he rose from the chair very gracefully and pushed it back in.

"Hey!" the security guard snapped. "I said get your hands in the air!"

Still Lelouch did not heed his words; instead turning towards him.

He smiled.

"Hello, Rivalz," he said quietly.

Suzaku's heart gave an unpleasant jolt. _Rivalz_? Could it really be...? He didn't dare turn around, knowing that the gun was still raised; but he listened to the shallow gasp behind him.

"Oh... o-oh my God..." Another intake of breath. "..._Lelouch_?"

"Mm." Lelouch took a step forward. "And Suzaku."

"N-no!" Rivalz's voice hardened again. "Stay where you are! Don't move, both of you! You think I'm going to fall for this?"

"It's the truth," Suzaku sighed, washed along with Lelouch's admission; there was no point in denying it when the damage was done. "There's a lot you don't understand, Rivalz, but it's the truth."

He heard the gun falter in Rivalz's hand and took the opportunity to quickly turn himself, still with his hands raised and open to show that he meant no harm.

Ah. Yes. It _was_ Rivalz Cardemonde who stood before them. Older, taller, dressed in the dark navy-and-grey uniform of the public library's security force, his hair fanning upwards in its usual style from beneath his peaked hat – but Rivalz all the same.

Cheerful, dorky, steadfastly-loyal Rivalz – perhaps about the only person whose life Lelouch hadn't ruined in some way or another.

Naturally, Rivalz had gone very pale, his eyes wide as he took in the sight of two ghosts before him.

"H-how is this possible?" he asked hoarsely, looking from one to the other, his quivering hand yet still firm on his regulation gun. "Lelouch, I saw you die. I was in the crowd that day. I... I saw Zero... Zero kill you and..." He took a deep breath and squeezed his eyes shut for a moment. "God damn it, _I saw you die_!"

"I know you did," Lelouch said softly. "Along with the world."

"So you faked it?"

Lelouch tilted his head.

"I suppose that's the easiest way of putting it," he agreed.

Rivalz stiffened briefly.

"I guess I shouldn't be surprised," he muttered after a moment. "You always had a trick up your sleeve, didn't you?"

Lelouch shot him a dry grin. Rivalz looked away from him, turning his attention to Suzaku.

"And what about you?" he asked. "It was all over the news when you died – Knight of Zero blown to bits and all that. I watched it with Milly." He gave a shake of his head. "Man, you wouldn't believe how empty the Student Council Room was around then. Milly wasn't even a student any more. It was just me. Everyone else was gone."

Suzaku glanced briefly at Lelouch, who said nothing.

"More lies and trickery," Suzaku replied flatly. "That's all it was. Smoke and mirrors like all of Lelouch's miracles."

There was another tense moment between the three of them; and then Rivalz finally lowered his gun.

"I don't understand," he sighed, pushing back his hat and scratching at his hairline. "I mean, I just don't... none of makes any sense... well..." He shot them both a very watery smile. "Huh, I guess that's why you never told me any of your plans, right?"

"We didn't tell anyone," Lelouch said. "It was just between us. The burden was ours to share and no-one else's."

"And that whole thing where you turned into a huge megalomaniacal world-ruling jerk?"

"...Necessity," Lelouch said after a moment. "I... I know that sounds odd."

Rivalz shrugged, holstering his gun again.

"Eh, I've heard odder." He paused. "I think." He frowned at them both. "That doesn't explain why you're both back now, skulking around the public library at two in the morning, though."

"Kallen," Lelouch said blandly. "We need to find Kallen and we planned to look her up on the Tokyo area census database."

Suzaku studied Rivalz as this bit of news sank in; the Britannian boy's dark eyebrows noticeably lowered as he looked at Lelouch.

"Kallen," he said flatly. "You know, maybe it's not my place to say this, but I don't think she's going to want to see you, Lelouch. She was angry at you for months after... well, your "assassination". One night in our last year of school, me and her went out for pizza so we could catch up, you know, and she started crying about the whole thing."

"Believe me, I don't _want_ to drag her into this," Lelouch said tiredly. "But nothing about this is a pleasure trip. We need a good Knightmare pilot and Kallen was the best in the Black Knights. We _need_ her."

Rivalz frowned.

"What are you doing, Lelouch?" he asked in a low voice. "You're not starting _another_ rebellion, are you?"

"Oh, I suppose you could call it that if you wanted," Lelouch sighed. "It would be something of an exaggeration but I admit that what we are planning to do does have somewhat-rebellious overtones."

"It's not a war," Suzaku said quickly, really thinking that Lelouch was sort of going about this the wrong way. "It's nothing like... well, what happened before, it's—"

"It's just that it's turned out that there's some unfinished business," Lelouch cut in curtly. "Business somewhat involving my late parents and you can trust me that it _does_ need to be addressed."

"And you need Kallen," Rivalz reiterated.

"Regrettably, yes," Lelouch agreed. He pointed at the computer behind him. "So, if you don't mind, could we use that?"

Rivalz looked very conflicted for a moment, giving a furtive glance about and then between Lelouch and Suzaku. It was painful to see the expression on his face and Suzaku felt sorry for him. Sweet, kind, big-hearted Rivalz, one of the only people who had ever stood up for Suzaku back at Ashford Academy when the Japanese had been only Elevens. Suzaku had always liked Rivalz very much and hated to do this to him – to haunt him as Lelouch haunted _him_, to test his loyalty and jeopardise his job.

"Th...there's no need," Rivalz said quietly after a long, strained moment; he reached into his jacket pocket and pulled out his wallet, opening it up. "I can give you her address. We're still in touch." He pulled out a little piece of paper, folded it and handed it to Lelouch. "She's studying at the new university they built two years ago since, you know, she aced all the entrance exams." He gave a sheepish grin and gestured to his uniform. "As you can see, I didn't."

"Is it near here?" Lelouch asked, carefully tucking the piece of paper bearing Kallen's address securely under one of his buckles.

Rivalz shook his head.

"No, it's actually over near Ashford," he said. "It'll be on a city map—oh, hang on a sec..." A small, thin walkie-talkie device at his belt buzzed and vibrated and he pulled it free, bringing it to his ear. "Hello?"

There was some tinny, inexplicable chatter on the other end of the line and Rivalz frowned.

"You found _how many_ of the team unconscious?" he asked; he looked up at Suzaku irritably as he spoke.

The voice at the end of the line came again.

"Uh, okay, yeah, I-I'll be right down," Rivalz replied quickly; he hit the 'Off' switch and shoved the walkie-talkie back into his belt.

"It won't cause any lasting damage, I promise," Suzaku said guiltily.

Rivalz kneaded his forehead under the peak of his hat.

"Okay, you guys have officially outstayed your welcome," he said flatly. "I'll cover for you but you need to get the hell out of here right now." He pointed towards the far end of the room. "Go down the fire stairs and leave out of the back entrance and for God's sake don't go ninja-movie on anyone else!"

"That's what I said," Lelouch muttered.

"Come on," Suzaku urged, beckoning furiously to Lelouch. "We need to go."

"Oh," Rivalz said, smiling faintly, "and if anything happens to Kallen, I'll come hunt the pair of you down."

"I believe it," Suzaku said. "Thanks for your help, Rivalz."

Rivalz sighed.

"Dead or not, you guys are still my friends," he said, sounding a little defeated; he gave them a mock-salute.

Suzaku nodded; and watched, rather stunned, as Lelouch – who had always hated public displays of affection – stepped towards Rivalz and gave him a quick hug.

"Thankyou, Rivalz," he said sincerely; before pulling away without another word and going after Suzaku.

They didn't quite clasp hands, instead only their little fingers coming together again as they drifted like ghosts out of Rivalz Cardemonde's life once again.

* * *

...So. What happened to this fanfic? idek. I didn't go off _Code Geass_. I don't think I even really fell out of the fandom, exactly. Admittedly I did write myself into a corner at one point and it took much pondering in order to haphazardly fix it (hence why some things in this chapter are still a little... _convenient_) but even that really shouldn't have taken _almost an entire year_.

You see, it's too easy to blame my new(est) fandom, _Hetalia: Axis Powers_. Oh, I'm going to blame it anyway, given that, since like exactly this time last year (around Thanksgiving), I have written around fifteen complete _APH_ fics and begun at least three other multi-chapter ones, but, yeah... it was more like I prioritised _Hetalia_ a little bit. XD Argh, I hate to play favourites but you all know how fun and shiny and tempting a new fandom can be...

(Interestingly, _Code Geass_ and _Hetalia_ share a voice-actor: Noriaki Sugiyama voices both England and Rivalz – who popped up again in _GITM_ in this chapter because I love him so even though he's dreadfully underrated as a character...)

Ughhhhh, well, I guess this is basically just to say that I am _so sorry_ for the year's delay on this chapter but I hope you liked it! As you can see, this fanfic is not abandoned, just sloooooow, so thankyou very much to all who have supported it throughout its year-long hibernation and sent reviews and PMs asking about its welfare! I'm pretty sure I at least replied to you to quell your fears for its life if you asked if it was discontinued, so for some of you, I guess this chapter actually hasn't come as too much of a surprise...

Well, um, thanks, guys! I am not worthy! ^^

Thanks also to my beta **AutumnDynasty**, who picked at this chapter probably at least in part to get me back for taking so long, hahaha. But thanks for your support too, AutumnDynasty – even if you have cursed _Hetalia_ to high hell and back for it (even as you download doujins, read my fics and make USUK FSTs with me). XD

I might as well admit that this fic is probably going to be slow-going because of my partial fandom jump and also because I'm in my final year at university now and really ought to actually do some work but, as this chapter has proved, please rest assured that it is NOT ABANDONED! We'll get there in the end, guys!

Thanksyou for reading! Hope it was worth the wait!

(Probably not, lololololol)

RobinRocks

xXx


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